


The Ollivander Method

by tigersilver



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Apologies, Community: dracotops_harry, Consensual Sex, Draco Tops Harry Fest 2019, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Humor, Forced Bonding, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, House Elf Society, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memorials, Pensieves, Posh Draco, Post-War, Rebuilding Hogwarts, Relationship Discussions, Sex Somewhere On the Malfoy Estate, Tea, Wandless Magic, oblivious boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-11-18 22:36:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18127379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: Harry keeps trying to give Draco back his wand. It keeps appearing back on his bedside table. Clearly, Mr Ollivander has the right of it: the Wand chooses the Wizard!





	1. June 5th, 1998

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FickleBiscuits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FickleBiscuits/gifts).



 

“Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition: _We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter’s the one, and Voldy’s gone moldy, so now let’s have fun!_ ”

Peeves’ Song, May 2, 1998. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

 

**June 5th, 1998**

 

 _Fuck_.

Harry’s eyes snapped open. Oh, shit.

He sat upright with a start, fighting off his clinging duvet. June 5th, it was. Malfoy’s _birthday_.

The day he’d sworn to give Draco back his wand.

Yawning, Harry dragged himself out of bed. The splintering shafts of sunlight of a ridiculously bright June morning had him blinking rapidly as they pierced through his bed hangings.

Squinting and scratching his belly, he nipped into the adjoining loo connected to Sirius’s old suite and went through his usual morning ablutions absentmindedly, his thoughts focused on the logistics of his self-assigned task of the day: finally returning Malfoy what was rightfully his. The one Malfoy had gotten from Mr Ollivander, all those years ago. And doubtless right about the same time Harry had gotten his own, given that they’d bumped into one another at Malkin’s, all unknowing of what Fate had in store for them.  

Yes, well. Fuck Fate, Harry thought firmly. His fate was his own, finally. Mostly. Keep calm and carry on, but lightly, right? They’d _won_.

Right, that. Harry forcibly cleared his mind of dwelling on prophecies and the like. He’d a rather more pressing thing to accomplish now; Hermione had said so quite firmly before she’d left. She’d said so quite firmly just last evening via a somewhat garbled international Floo, actually, among other repeated commands. _Again._

Harry had found himself to be compliant with her urgings; he was curious about Malfoy, and wanted to see how his ex-adversary was doing. True, it hadn’t been all that long since he’d seen him last, there in the wreckage of Hogwarts, but still. A lot could happen in a very short while, as Harry could attest.

To wit, Malfoy’s wand. And Harry’s quite perversely strong urge to return it.

The one Harry had abruptly ‘borrowed’. Not _stolen_ , but more like…'swiftly appropriated for the war effort’. But still, the wand he really rather needed to return to Malfoy before all those who’d been cajoled into it gathered back at Hogwarts to begin the work of the Grand Restoration at month’s end.

Harry winced, recalling the summons for help. McGonagall had actually had the gall to appear terribly frail and beseeching when she’d simultaneously proposed the idea of the United Restoration Effort and quite publically begged the favour of Harry’s returning for it. And then proceeded to guilt everyone listening into helping. So, yes, it would be he and Malfoy and no doubt any number of other Hogwarts students and alum, but not Ron, and also not Hermione, who’d both conveniently fucked themselves off to the Great Down Under.

With Harry’s full blessing. Hermione really needed to reconnect with her parents; Harry could absofuckinglutely understand that. And Ron really, _really_ needed to get the fuck away from his gathered and grieving family, all of them chafing at the bit whilst the Burrow was being rebuilt. Harry loved Molly most dearly _but_. Ron needed some space, clearly.

Also, Harry figured, his best mates would probably want to shag, and shagging under the eagle eyes of McGonagall and Mrs Weasley was just not on. Oh, so very not on. Privacy wasn’t exactly abounding at Hogwarts, not even with the tents Professor Flitwick had Charmed for all the Wizarding refugees.   

Indeed, Harry himself had fled as soon as he possibly could. Hogwarts was utter madness at the moment, being currently inhabited by not only the extended Weasley clan, but two or three score of older students besides, and the bustling flock of Professors. Miscellaneous other Wizards and Witches were also kipping over due to the damages done to Diagon, Hogsmeade and assorted Wizarding villages and estates. Neville’s grandmother was in residence, as well as the Lovegoods, father and daughter. Mr Ollivander, Madame Rosmerta and Mr Pottage of Potage’s were being housed. Fortunately St Mungo’s had taken away all the seriously wounded and the bodies of the dead but still, Hogwarts was no place to be if one had somewhere else one could be.

Harry assumed the Malfoys had realized the same thing and had done a bolt back to their mouldy old Manor. He’d not seen them past the afternoon of the day after the Battle.  

He took a moment to smile about his own surroundings, appreciating the peaceful mustiness and dank calm of Grimmauld Place as he traipsed through it on the way to his dining room. Even Kreacher had been welcoming in his own cranky way, a development Harry had decided to simply go along with.  Apparently rather a lot could be forgiven of Harry Potter, Avenger of Regulus.

“Master.”

“Morning, Kreacher!” Harry sang out cheerily, sitting down to the impressive full English the freakishly friendly old Elf insisted on presenting him every morning. He set Malfoy’s wand on the table by his cup and turned his attention to a spread worthy of one hundred young Wizards with wonky appetites. “Thanks for this; the food’s brilliant. As always.”

There was no way he could ever consume all of it, of course. Harry rather hoped Kreacher was slyly feeding the Elves the War had left homeless with his abundant leftovers. He had suspicions a few of those might even be housed in Grimmauld, kept out of his sight by his crusty old retainer. It made no matter to him, certainly. Kreacher was more than welcome to entertain his extended family.  In fact, it was a bit cheering to learn Kreacher even had family. Oh, the wonders of Ogden’s as a social emollient.

As usual, the Elf didn’t respond to Harry’s idle chatter much past an occasional grudging grunt of acknowledgement. Ignoring his less-than-sunnily dispositioned staff, who popped off on his own business anyway, Harry set his mind to recalling how exactly he’d gotten to Malfoy Manor the last time. It had seemed a sort of simple endeavour, getting Malfoy his wand back, but it really wasn’t.

Of course, Harry’s arrival there had been mostly accidental, thanks to the Snatchers. He’d always known the Manor was in Wiltshire, of course, because he knew rather a lot about Draco Malfoy, but he wasn’t terribly familiar with the topography of that part of the country. Although it clearly wasn’t UnPlottable and under Fidelius like Grimmauld, the Manor had certainly struck him as being pretty well private and secluded. All those long dark hedges and hulking huge gates! And the mansion itself being built of positive acres of ghostly white marble, with columns and architectural furbelows and follies abounding; it was all a bit much, at least in Harry’s estimation.

No wonder Voldemort had chosen it, though, Harry thought. What with all the ominous ostentation! Well, he wished Malfoy joy of his manorial mausoleum but Harry still needed a way to get there--and back again, as quickly as possible.

Harry mused, ticking possibilities over in his head as he shovelled down his eggs. There were ways...and then there were _Ways_. He could simply try to fly it, he supposed, but maybe the easiest thing to do was to simply Floo. Which he would have, excepting he was fairly sure Voldemort hadn’t kept up the Floo connexion. And Kingsley had been sort of reticent about what was happening with the Malfoys and their Manor when Harry had last taken luncheon with him.

So instead of all those, he’d make use of the Elf Portal Kreacher had grudgingly suggested: “ _Family_ , Master Harry. You is family to some in the House of Malfoy, and you is family to the House of Black, and Elf Law allows for family in need to pass through our Doorways.”

Harry nodded to himself, fairly satisfied. That was it, the plan.

After all, Narcissa had been a Black before her marriage, had she not? And so Draco was a Black relative as well. Harry was an honorary Black, courtesy of his late godfather, and a legal Black now as well, courtesy of the recent barrister’s visit and what seemed like a hundred dusty old scrolls, all requiring Harry’s signature. And Kreacher had said so, which meant more in practical ways than anything the fustily dressed old Goblin had had to say about it. Then, too, there was Teddy, Harry’s godson, and of course Andromeda herself. Mayhap even some of Harry’s actual blood Potter forebears had commingled with all that lot of Ancients-and-Honourables some centuries past; who knew?

Harry shrugged, feeling philosophical as he ate the last of his toast soldiers. Fuck, he was likely Draco’s cousin in some weird convoluted way. But--please dear Merlin!-- _not_ Lucius’s!  

So, yes, it wasn’t too unreasonable a stretch to assume the Ancient and Honourable House of Black would still have a working Elf Door accessing Malfoy Manor somewhere. If Kreacher said so, then it was so. And while it might be rude of Harry to pass through without any advance warning, Harry felt he really, _really_ had to return Malfoy his wand. Today. On Draco’s birthday.

Didn’t he?

Oh yes, definitely. Dithers aside, Harry had pretty much convinced himself the poor sod was probably feeling quite at a loss without it. Draco had certainly seemed wan, forlorn and more than a bit lean-and-desperate the last time Harry had seen him. Hermione had mentioned she thought Draco looked ‘peaky’. Which caused Ron to scowl and then guffaw and Harry to stare at her like she’d gone mental.  

 _Merlin! Poor_ peaky _Malfoy!_ Harry couldn’t quite suppress a small shudder as he licked a gob of lemon curd off his thumb. A year or more ago he’d have giggled his arse off over a ‘peaky Malfoy’, but not anymore. There’d been quite enough suffering and rather too much cruelty; he wasn't about to contribute. Besides, Harry had been feeling uneasy, even guilty over taking the wand--amongst a wealth of other nebulous matters to do with Draco Malfoy--for a while now. He’d not mind it all, having an excuse to check up on him. Maybe satisfy his curiosity.

His perfectly _natural_ curiosity.

Of course, Harry’s memory of his brief time at the Manor was a bit of a blur, what with the Snatchers and the horror of Hermione’s torture and the brutal hexing he’d endured first to render himself unrecognizable, but several strong impressions had stuck with him. Malfoy’s _look_ , at that crucial moment when he’d been called upon to identify Harry, for instance.

It had been singularly strange for Harry, staring into Malfoy’s glass-grey eyes and knowing full well the bloke _knew_ him, knew _exactly_ who he was, not a _shred_ of doubt about it all, even as Harry listened to Draco waffle on and deny him. Vague, that verbal faffing about Draco had pulled, but sufficiently slippery for the purpose. He must’ve been Occluding like mad! But it had sparked Harry’s hope they all might make it out of Malfoy Manor alive...if not quite unscathed.

If Harry was brutally honest about it, there’d always been a certain tiny part of him who’d known Draco wouldn’t blithely sell them all down the proverbial river.  

But there’d been something else, too, beyond that gut instinct. Something very _off_ about Draco’s behavior. Harry meditatively sipped the dregs of his tea, thinking it over. The thing with him ‘stealing’ Malfoy’s wand? It had been all too easy, remarkably so. In fact, he’d rather felt as though Malfoy had practically offered it him. He’d barely struggled against Harry at all, although he’d certainly made it look as though he was for their viewing audience. No, Draco’s wand had been a gift, in a way, from a bloody ‘secret admirer’. An unexpected ally, even.

Harry grimaced. Very bloody fucking ‘secret’ after how many years of open animosity, but still! It had certainly set Harry to thinking.  

Indeed, beyond that incident which had struck him so deeply, there’d been those glimpses he’d had of Draco, through Voldemort’s mind’s eye. And other things, too. The Fiendfyre, for one--and how Draco had been acting before Crabbe went mental. Even the stupid-sly way he’d been acting with that one Death Eater, the one Ron had biffed him over. The time he warned them all; ‘Keep that big bushy head down, Granger,’ he’d said. 

All of it taken together had really impressed itself upon Harry’s consciousness, so much so he’d made a point to have a serious word with Kingsley and even Professors McGonagall and Flitwick after it was all over, the Battle. How Malfoy had seemed to be cooperating with Harry’s seat-of-the-broom wild plan of escaping, even to the extent of aiding-and-abetting. Which, when taken into consideration with both his notable lack of bloodthirstiness in the Room of Requirement and the rumours Harry had heard about him fighting off Death Eater’s to keep the younger Slytherins safe during the Battle, all sort of added up to _something_.

Something _interesting_ , Harry thought. Something ‘positive and healing’, even. ‘Rift-mending’. Well....That was what Hermione said about it, when he’d Floo’d her. Ron had just stared at Harry, long and squinty-eyed, and told him “Whatever, mate. You do you. You will anyway, right?”

Well, Harry was intending to.  Wasn’t he? No time like the present, then.

Squaring his shoulders and firming his chin, he rattled his cup into its saucer and leapt out of his seat, all at once eager to crack on. It would be fun. Sneaking into Malfoy Manor through an Elf Door? What a lark, right? Who knew where he might end up? Kreacher said Elf Doors weren’t exactly set in jolly, wide-open, welcoming places, like Wizarding Floos were. Oh no, they were Elven and thus secret, as they wound about the spaces In Between.

 _Oh, wait, no! Ugh!_ Harry shivered, the memory of the Malfoy dungeons briefly revisiting him. He rather desperately hoped he wouldn’t end up in any of the nastier bits. He’d have to trust that Kreacher wouldn’t want that for him either. The Aurors had been through, or so reported Kingsley.

“Kreacher! Kreacher, I’m ready.”

Harry perked up as he waited on the Elf’s reappearance, idly fingering the extra wand tucked in the waistband of his joggers. It would be a nice end to it all, returning the wand. One way or another, it was going to be a lot more than merely _interesting_ , informing Draco Malfoy the two of them were “family”.

“Right this way, Master Harry.”

 _Ack! Fuck!_  Harry careened over a large wooden cask upon arrival, nearly braining himself on the spigot.

“Oi, fucking help!” he yelped, scrambling to his feet and looking frantically about him. The first thing he saw though, instead of a pile of poor dead Muggles, was another House Elf.  “Wait, who are you?”

“I am Snobby, Master--Master Harry Potter? Can it be that Snobby sees Master Harry Potter in Snobby’s own cellar?”

A dancing Elf, with ears even longer than Dobby’s, clad in a smart little toga and a Slytherin green sash, his hands bedecked with set of kitchen mitts. Green ones, with giant silver ‘S’s. Harry winced, dodging.  

“Oh, it can, it can! Master P-Potter! The Master Harry Potter, it is you, s-sir!” Snobby had gone completely off his nut, capering toward and around Harry in dizzying circles, the mitts and toga flapping. “The same Master who has exploded the evil great Wizard? Our Dobby did say so much about you, Master Harry--all good things, all of them!”

“Er?” Harry gulped, stifling the pang the mention of Dobby brought him. “Did he now?”

“Oh yes, and thousand times yes! All of us have heard our Dobby’s tales of the Great Master Harry ever so many times, Master Harry! Even Master Draco has spoken kindly of the Great Master Harry!”

“...H-He _has_?”

“Ever so many times, oh Master Harry, ever so. **Many**. Times! Old Master Lucius who is _Not_ -Master-Now did often shake his head over it! Oh, but please let poor old Snobby bow down and kiss your precious f-feet, Master Harry Potter? Pretty, pretty please, with knickers on?”

“Ack! No, don’t!”

Alarmed, Harry skittered crabwise behind yet another fragrant cask and warily regarded the shaking, squeaking being he’d put safely at arm’s-length. Landing on an unwary Elf was not part of the programme! The prospect of having his feet kissed by same was positively revolting.

“But, Master Harry, Snobby would be so very honoured!”

“No, no, please don’t do that! It’s not at all necessary--I mean to say, Snobby can be very, er, honoured from over there, alright? Alright.” Harry made frantic ‘shoo’-ing motions at the importuning Elf. “Erm, see here, could Snobby just please go fetch Malfoy? _Draco_ Malfoy, not the other one. Quickly now, please. Er, Master Harry here is in a great hurry, see?”

He stole another glance about him. Kreacher had warned him he’d end up in the Malfoy cellars, and indeed he had. Elf Doors generally led into the more private parts of the places Wizards and Witches dwelt: lavs, root cellars, Potions pantries and the like, places where the public wasn’t prone to roam. This one was abounding in kegs, casks and bottles. “I rather don’t think I’m supposed to be down here.”

“B-But of course, M-Master P-Potter! If poor old Snobby may not kiss your feet, he may certainly fetch Master Draco for Master Harry! But one m-moment!”

He popped off, leaving a blessed stillness in his absence.

Harry released a hefty sigh of relief and prepared himself to wait. The Malfoy dungeons weren’t a fond memory by any means, but a more thorough scan truly assured him he’d come through to what looked to be solely the harbour of Ancient-and-Honourable hard spirits and not some horrible Death Eater abattoir, stinking of Dark Magic and the death of many Muggles.

Happy there was nothing more worrisome than a few stray spider webs and some posh dust, Harry let himself settle back into his slippers and posed himself, leant up casually against an ancient old oak barrel. He considered whipping out Draco’s wand and twirling it about, just for the devil-may-care look of it. For, if nothing else, Harry rather wanted to appear confident in the eyes of his old school rival.  He glanced down, taking in his comfortable morning tattiness and mentally ‘Oops!’-ing. Perhaps it might’ve a better idea to change into day robes and denims before visiting but then again, what if he had? He might not have come at all, if he’d thought overlong about it. It had been touch-and-go there, for a bit.

Say what one may about puffed-up ‘Saviours’, Harry knew full well he was no Gilderoy Lockhart. Malfoy Manor gave him the willies. And reminded him of sorrow. Harry hunched his shoulders, struggling to retain his sense of purpose.

The Malfoy elf--'Snobby’, was it?--greatly resembled Dobby, something he supposed wasn’t all that surprising. Kreacher had been surprisingly forthcoming late last night, both of them deep in their cups down the kitchens, sharing all manner of Black family stories with Harry. Never failing to remind him that, after all and often no matter what, House Elf families really were intensely loyal to the Wizards and Witches they served. And, just as with those Wizarding families, there was a great lot of closely connected blood relations in House Elf society. ‘Snobby’ might even be Kreacher’s relative. Likely was.

Same as Draco might be Harry’s ‘cousin’--and wouldn’t that infuriate the posh prat?

“Potter?” A dryly surprised voice interrupted Harry’s musings, causing his latent smile to vanish. “Harry Potter, in the flesh? What on earth are you doing, loitering about in my cellars? Are you lost, perchance? Misplaced?”

“Merlin, Draco!” Harry started, nearly jogging open the wine spigot by accident. He sent an accusing glare. “Fuck, but you put the wind up me! A little warning next time, alright?”

“Oh, well. Sorry, Potter. Is there to be a ‘next time’, then?”

Malfoy sniffed, shrugged carelessly and narrowed his eyes, considering Harry from his rumpled hair to his battered mules and pausing for just a little longer than was quite comfortable to gaze inquiringly at all the in-between bits. The part where Harry’s ancient t-shirt had rucked up, exposing the sag of his equally aged joggers, in particular. Harry flushed under the scrutiny, setting himself to rights quickly as he could; he’d not the faintest what Malfoy was on about, but surely his skin shouldn’t be _that_ fascinating?

“I’m sure I didn’t mean to give you a fright,” Draco continued. “But it is my cellar, not yours, and it never occurred to me you might inhabit it---again, that is. So? Is it too much to ask what you’re doing lurking amongst my prized ports at arse-crack o’clock in the morning? In your pajamas, Potter?”

One fair eyebrow canted up at an angle, invoking instant consternation. So much for his erstwhile confidence! Harry seethed a little inwardly, blushed a little outwardly, and instantly avoided the open mockery in Malfoy’s eyes.  

“You see, Malfoy,” he said, earnestly addressing the teetering stack of port barrels and feeling very wrong-footed. “Erm, Draco, I mean. It’s....well.”

“Yes, _Potter_?”

“Shut it.” Miffed, Harry bucked right up in visceral response to Malfoy’s sniping. “I’m here for good reason, _Draco,_ ” he said doggedly, enunciating tit-for-tat. “Don’t be an arse over it; hear me out.”

“I see,” Draco replied suspiciously. “You’ve just stopped in to scold. How kind of you to call, _Potter_.”  

“No, shut your gob! Let me finish.” He met Draco’s coolly disbelieving gaze with a beseeching look, the same one he’d used sometimes on Ginny, actually.

“Uh...Right.” Draco ceased his nonsensical posturing, cleared his throat and flicked his fringe back, faintly flushed. It cascaded regally over his high forehead again right quick. “Go on, then. State your business.”

Harry drew out Draco’s wand but kept it mostly concealed in his dressing gown sleeve. It was quite true it was a bit early for a social call, yes, and also rather horribly apparent that he was clad in what amounted to his sleeping kit. But none of that was pertinent.  He’d not allow to be, despite the way Draco’s eyes were furtively roaming his person.

“It’s very important, really,” he said, focussing on and specifically addressing the one stubborn blond eyebrow, determined to keep to his mission. The utter untouchable Malfoyishness Draco effortlessly presented at ‘arse o’clock of the morning’ was so very much in contrast to Harry’s rough-and-tumble, though. It was daunting. “I swear. I’d not have come if it wasn’t.”  

“Alright.” Draco dropped the last remnants of his mocking pose instantly, stepping closer. “Sounds serious enough. Is it more Auror business? Because Shacklebolt’s squad has practically taken up residence and we are in full cooperation, I assure you.”    

“No! I’m not an Auror, Merlin forbid!” Horrified by the idea, Harry ventured forward. Draco’s wand was right there in his fist, mostly visible, and yet Draco had yet to so much as glance at it, much less mention its blaring presence. “Think I’ve had enough blood-and-gore to last a lifetime, ta very much!”

“And haven't we all?” Draco nodded. “Go on.”  

“Well…” Suddenly what had all seemed so simple in concept had become terribly complicated! Entangled in a conflict of reality-versus-expectations and feeling stumped, Harry fell back on the niceties.  “I’m, well, it’s just that I...ooh, er, _Merlin_. Um...hullo?” He smiled at Draco, gamely maintaining his determination and grimly gripping fast in a sweaty palm his friendly purpose. “Good morning. Uh. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? How are you?”

“You’re joking?” His Poshness went all stock-still, wary and regal. He regarded Harry steadily, striking hair gleaming silver-gilt in the subdued sconce light. “Hullo yourself, Potter. Good morning. What _did_ you want?”

“Okay, yes. That.”

Harry abruptly decided Hermione’s way was the best way: when in doubt, list the facts in a rational manner. People--even the Draco Malfoy sort of people--didn't tend to be so argumentative when faced with an onslaught of data, right?

“Okay, thirdly,” he said, mentally fumbling through his list of things to say to awkward people. “I’m sorry it’s so early but I--well, this was too important for it to wait. I don't sleep well and it was incredibly bright this morning; I’m a little hungover still, maybe, and I--I just came through. It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

“...Yes.” Draco frowned heavily, shifting his stance. “What of it?”

“So.” Harry attempted to plaster over an even friendlier version of the smile he’d previously pasted on and somehow lost in the process. “Happy birthday, Draco! Best wishes of the day, all that. I’ve, er. I’ve just come to return something to you. As a present, in a manner of speaking. A gift.”

“I see,” Malfoy replied flatly, cautiously approaching Harry and clearly unimpressed by Harry’s well-wishing. Or possibly by Harry’s bloody everything, who knew?  “Well, honestly, Potter, I don’t see anything at all but. Whatever. Excuse me.”

He grasped Harry by the upper arm, stubbornly not taking note of his wand in the slightest. Harry blinked at at him, mildly aghast. "Aren't you going to at least thank me?"

“Yes, thank you, much obliged and all _that_ , but this is hardly the best place to entertain a guest of the Manor,” Draco said, nimbly aligning them. “Especially the Wizarding World’s Saviour, right? Do come along to the Morning Room, present yourself properly at least. Mother will want to know you’ve come calling on us Malfoys. She’ll be all agog.”

“What, go meet your mum?” Harry did a double-take. “Take tea? In the Morning Room? **Now** ? No! I’m not here to--I’m not even dressed for that!” He dug his slippered heels into the cracks between the dark stone pavers and resisted to no avail. Draco was clearly adamant. The cellar at once spun about and became all hazy, even as Harry protested. “What in the hell, Mal _fooy_!! Errr--uulp! Bleaugh!”

“Fuss and bother, Potter.” Malfoy smirked, landing them neatly. “I swear, you’re always so dramatic.”

“Gah, but I hate that sensation.” The Side-along left Harry groaning and blinking against the  wind-down of the inevitable dizzying spin. “Fuck, Draco. I’m only here to--I mean, I just can’t even--and--and your mum!”

“Potter,” Malfoy, all exaggerated patience, unhanded Harry with alacrity and gesturing widely about them. “We’re already here. Stop being such a namby-pamby baby about it. Oh, and welcome to Malfoy Manor proper. I don’t believe you had a chance to admire it when you were here last. Sorry about that.”

“Fuck you too, Malfoy,” Harry replied, busy staring. Everything confronting him was huge, marbled, brilliant with morning and featuring gobs of glittering glass and greenery. “Good gods! Where _is_ this?”  Harry, accustomed to the tattered grandeur of Grimmauld and the imposing halls of Hogwarts academia, frankly gawped.

“Morning Room, Potter. As I said.”

Whether dedicated solely to ‘mornings’ or not, it was yet a vastly elegant space, drenched in the light from a series of huge arching windows. They faced out upon an endless expanse of smooth white stone balcony, all done up in miles of carven railings and balusters, and all overlooking extensive grounds. The Morning Room, Draco called it?  Harry shook his head. It was more like a gargantuan conservatory and it had Harry wincing against the resolving glare of a thousand panes of perfectly transparent glass reflecting off a wealth of polished pale tile. It was especially shocking to the senses after the pleasantly sweet alcoholic dimness of the wine cellar. But...it did smell good, Harry noticed, and it was a relief to see the countryside again after the weeks spent in the urban fastness of Grimmauld.

“Oh. Merlin, Draco, this is a bit brilliant,” he allowed, peering about a little more intently as his eyes adjusted. “It’s as if you have your own Hogwarts greenhouse right inside your actual house.”

Imposing as it was, Harry discovered he found it all rather amazingly lovely, the white and the gilt of the fancy furniture, and then the many greens of the lawns and the forest beyond them, echoed within the room by towering live ferns and artfully espaliered fruit trees trained against the gleaming walls. Potted gardenias and other far more Magical varieties bloomed all about them, perfuming the air and calming his addled nerves.

“Ta, glad you approve, Potter.” Draco waved Harry’s compliment off as if it were nothing. “It’s actually bog standard compared to some but this is just the West Wing, where we’re more informal. More suitable for unexpected callers, don’t you agree? The actual Conservatory is located in the South Wing.”

“Oh?” Harry gulped, his eyes widening. “It is?”

“Mmm-hmm. This way, Potter. Over here.”

Draco’s lips quirked as he beckoned at Harry; his eyes had darkened to a very interesting smouldering pewter shade. When Harry remained stalled, still rubbernecking, he huffed and took up Harry’s elbow, steering him. His long-fingered grip flexed as he guided Harry across the black-and-white parquet and straight into an richly upholstered chair, lingering before he drew it away. Harry liked the spot instantly; It was an intimately cosy seating arrangement removed from and set at an angle to the windows, all centred on a lovely moss-green carpet and sheltered by yet more towering greenery.

“Here,” Draco said affably, that faintest insinuation of a leer setting Harry’s teeth on edge. “Do be at ease, Potter.”  

“What? What does that even mean, Draco?”

Once more the perv was silently calling out Harry’s state of undress, it seemed. Harry ground his teeth together, beetling his brows darkly at his host. Draco noticing Harry was making Harry notice Draco all the more, and it was all a bit…disturbing. And not to the point, either.

“Just...this one’s a nice one,” Draco was saying, giving the armchair a fond pat in passing. But his gaze was on Harry's arse. “Some of the older ones can be a little squirrely. They don’t much appreciate visitors.”

Harry met Draco’s gravely amused gaze as he settled his bum firmly into the upholstery, hiding it from view. “Oh? ‘Squirrley’, you say?  What, is it likely to bite me?”

“No,” Draco chuckled. “I only meant my forebears haven’t always been of the opinion comfort was necessary,” he explained. “Apparently sufficient padding in the upholstery was for the weak-willed.”

“Ah.”   

Suitably installed, Harry occupied himself with trying to identify some of the plants whilst Draco drifted off a few steps, muttering under his breath.  He snapped his fingers, just as Harry was burying his nose in a massively wide purple bloom, easily the size of his entire head. Fleetingly, he considered the puzzle of the Malfoy 'Morning Room' being situated in the West Wing when the sun generally rose in the East, but shrugged it off as not worth his while asking.

“More tea, if you please, Snobby.”

“Yes, Master Malfoy.”

“In fact, Snobby.” Draco side-eyed Harry thoroughly. Harry, very much on edge, practically embedded himself in his flower. “If Measeley might manage it quickly, send along something a little more substantial. Eggs, bangers and toast. Biscuits and those apricot scones. P’raps some hot chocolate? Potter?”

“At once, Master Malfoy.”  

“Mind the Bougainvillea Gargantua, Potter; some say it’s carnivorous.” Harry twitched under that piercing stare, cursing Draco's attentiveness. “Hmm, you rather look as though you could do with a good dose of chocolate. Be sure to bring rather a lot of those digestives, Snobby.”

Harry did his best to ignore him, other than a scowl in passing resentment over Draco’s commenting on his appearance in yet another manner. Besides, Harry grumbled internally, leaving go of the flower hastily, his previous malnourishment wasn’t a problem. Especially as Kreacher had been hell-bent to remediate it by feeding Harry five massive meals a day.

“That will be all, Snobby; thank you. Oh, Mother?”   

Harry squinted at the icy-white blots moving about on the manicured lawns, instead. Yes, those had to be the famed Malfoy peacocks, the ones he’d heard tell of. They looked sleek and evil, even from a distance. He was very glad he’d not been sent through an Elf Door in their vicinity. Regular peacocks were horrid enough; Harry couldn’t even imagine how terrible their magic equivalent would be to encounter.

“Mother,” Harry heard Draco saying, “Mother, we have the unexpected pleasure of Potter.”

“What? Wait a moment, Draco!” Harry jerked his head about in alarm. Oh bloody Merlin, but Draco had mentioned something about his being presented to Narcissa, hadn’t he? “No, no, no!” he burst out, half-rising from the seat Draco had stuffed him into, “I really can’t stay to meet your--”

“Mother? Here you are.” Draco was some ways away, politely addressing the back of an immense wing-back armchair turned to face full on the gardens. “I’m so sorry to intrude on your morning meditation, but we’ve Potter, you see. I’ve called for more tea, if you’ll come and have some with us?”

Harry heard an indistinct murmur, and tensed himself for flight.

“And,” he heard Draco chiding his mum gently, “may I ask why have you not mentioned the wine cellars were left insecure by Father? I’d’ve re-Warded them immediately if I’d known. Though Father’s instructions are not exactly the epitome of clarity. Was he sozzled when he wrote them out?”

“Oh, quite possibly, Draco darling,” Narcissa replied, rising from her seat and coming about it to link arms with her progeny and advance upon Harry in a deceptively graceful swift gait. “No doubt it will be resolved quickly enough; you should not concern yourself at the moment, what with Minister-Elect Shacklebolt in constant attendance. Why, good morning, Mr. Potter! What a delightful surprise, to be sure.”

“Mrs Malfoy!” Cornered, Harry sprang to his feet politely, as if yanked upright by Levicorpus. “Ma’am!”

“Indeed, this is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Potter,” Mrs Malfoy purred. “How terribly kind of you to call.”

She extended both hands to him as she unlatched herself from her son’s arm, leaving Harry with no choice but to take up her her long white fingers in his rather markedly shorter stubby ones. A quick clasp-and-squeeze left him flushing. He went scarlet when he remembered he’d not thought to wash up before popping through Kreacher’s portal.  

“Er, um. Thank you?”

Draco watched them both surreptitiously, Harry noted, even as he directed the activities of the House Elf about the over-laden the tea trolley. Harry frowned at him, but instantly smoothed out his irritated expression when Narcissa raised one of those bloody blond eyebrows at him in puzzlement.

“Nice to be here,” Harry added, looking down at their joined hands awkwardly. He hoped she wouldn’t remark on his buttery thumbnails. “Er. Sorry it’s so early.”

“And?” Narcissa prompted archly, showing no indication of leaving go of Harry. “Is there a reason for it? I do hope Mr Shacklebolt has assured you the Manor is in the all clear now.”

“Um--argh!” Harry swallowed so fast and hard, he began to cough uncontrollably. "Ahem, ack!"

What was with these Malfoys, not even batting a lash when they mentioned Shacklebolt? As if the man had become their dear friend instead of their long-term adversary. But then again, the woman before him had effectively saved his life from her former Master, just by bold-faced lying. She clearly had bollocks of brass, or possibly platinum. And Harry wasn’t an Auror, and no longer wanted to be. He’d no intention of fucking with her life further by trotting off to Shacklebolt like a rotten tattletale. “S-sorry!”

“Alright there, Potter?” Draco called out. “It’s bad form to expire before tea is served, you know.”  

“Yes, fine! Shut--oop, erm!” Harry hastily wrenched his attention back to Mrs Malfoy. “Um, it’s actually not a social call, really, Mrs Malfoy. I’ve Draco’s wand yet. From--from before. I’ve wanted to return it to him, and so.” He shrugged, hoping not to be forced to explain the early-morning wine cellar encounter. “Um. Here I am, thanks to Kreacher. I couldn’t trust trying to come through your main Floo, sorry.”

“Oh yes,” Mrs Malfoy’s smile deepened and her cool blue eyes warmed several degrees as she deftly took control of the conversation, patting Harry lightly on the wrist in passing as their hands parted. “Dear old Kreacher. Of course he would have realized the Elf Door was the most efficacious method for you to enter the Manor.” She settled herself into one of the other chairs grouped upon the attractive carpet. “You are the godfather of my sister’s grandson, are you not? And my poor departed Cousin Sirius’s rightful Heir. Family indeed. Still, it’s most thoughtful of you to return Draco’s wand, Mr Potter. No one would expect it of you.”

“Indeed,” Malfoy chimed in dryly, fussing with the trolley Snobby had delivered them. “Very heroic, Potter. Do sit. _Tea_.”

“No, really.” Harry really hadn’t expected such a warm welcome from the Malfoys--or at least the two Malfoys he’d so far spoken to. “It’s nothing much,” he mumbled, ably plucking the delicate cup-and-saucer Draco sent winging at him out of thin air. “I mean to say, I should’ve done it sooner, except there’s not been much time.”

“Yes, yes, you’ve mentioned,” Draco said impatiently, disregarding Harry’s mention of his wand entirely. “Biscuit? Or shall I just make up a full plate for you? You’re looking peaky, Potter.”  

“Oh! What? No, I’m not hungry, ta. Peaky? Hey, that’s exactly what Hermione said about _you_ , just the other--ah!” Harry brought himself short with a start, as Mrs Malfoy was tilting her chin at him in an aggressively inquisitive manner. “I’m waffling on, sorry. Did I mention I don’t sleep well? I don’t, so I’m a little off when it comes to a proper sense of the time. Pardon again for barging in upon you so very early.”

“Quite understandable, Mr Potter.” Narcissa cocked her chin the other direction, smiling. “I’d expect you’ve had much to accomplish after the defeat of--”

“Yeah, him!” Harry hastened to interrupt. "I think we've all had quite enough of _him_ , don't you? I know _I_   have, definitely." He rolled his eyes, restraining himself from indulging in further covert glances at her son, who’d thus far remained remarkably, uncharacteristically mum as he sat his fine arse upon the floral settee making up the conversational circle. And who looked fit, in an angular but interesting ‘recently recovering from untold strain’ sort of way. Not bloody ‘peaky’ at all, the prat. “And, but, um, how do  _you_ do,  Mrs Malfoy? Well, I hope.”

“Very well, Mr. Potter, thank you for enquiring. It is drawing near the the Summer Solstice.” She nodded meaningfully and leant forward, as if sharing some arcane confidence with him. “I know I always find it more difficult to sleep peacefully at this time of the year myself, Mr Potter. I am sure you may be forgiven a little bout of insomnia. Don’t you agree, Draco darling?”

“Yes, Mother.” Draco nodded perfunctorily and snapped his fingers, his eyes on Harry. “Nevertheless, Potter. The first meal of the day is the most important.” Another full English appeared on the small console table by Harry’s elbow. “Anything else you might require? Do eat up; Measley will be highly offended if you don’t at least taste it.”  

“Ah, no!” Harry regarded the steaming plate-full askance; there was no possible way for him to manage yet another breakfast on top of the feast Kreacher had practically stuffed down his gullet. In spirit if not reality. "Merlin, **_no_** , thank you; I really just cannot manage another bite of anything. And I’m fine. Just tea is fine. In fact, I’m not even all that thirsty.”

“Pity.” Both Malfoys sniffed, Draco especially looking affronted. “You look as though you could use it.”

“Er, do I? Still?” Astonished, Harry blinked at the both of them, shaking his head slightly to clear it. Narcissa was positively twinkling over Draco's insistence on offering Harry brekkers--and Draco seemingly was truly offended when Harry couldn’t eat it! It was more than a little disconcerting, the entire situation. P'raps the Elf Door had sent him to an altered reality?

"Very well then, if you don't want it." Draco sniffed and glared at the plate of eggs, etcetera, Vanishing them forthwith. "Don't say I didn't try, Potter." 

"Of course not." Harry blinked. “...Um, so?” 

Suddenly uneasy and not unsurprisingly a mite suspicious, Harry cast about for a polite way to ascertain whether he’d suddenly be confronted with a maddened Lucius. Fate did have this nasty way about her, at least in his experience. Perhaps all this tea-and-sympathy was just a precursor of a Slytherin-esque trap?

“Yes, Potter?”

“Right.” But Harry was no coward; he was made of sterner stuff. Accordingly, he affixed a concerned expression to his face and set his cup down, readying for the worst. “And how is your father, Mr Malfoy? I believe I’ve already asked after your health, Draco.”

He gamely attempted a polite smile on the scion of House Malfoy, quelling the rising urge to simply toss the stupid wand at Draco and do a bolt out the huge marble hearth in the distance. “Must say you look a great deal healthier than last time I saw you. Not that it’s been all that long.”  

“I’m fine, thanks.” Draco bared his very white teeth at Harry, curling his lip back like a terribly well-bred Abraxan. “And no fear, Potter; it’s been long enough for Father to completely decamp to Switzerland. On a permanent basis. More tea?”

Malfoy made a vague gesture and set the teapot about playing Mother and refreshing everyone’s cuppas. Harry couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be managing just fine without his wand. And had been, the bloody devious bellend.  

“Oh, no thank you, darling.” Narcissa waved the floating teapot off gracefully, chiming in. “Yes, Mr Potter, Lucius is now residing abroad. I may--or may _not;_  I’ve not yet decided--one day join him.”

“Oh? Oh! Did he? Well,” Harry straightened his face as best he could for want of a better way to greet the happy news of Lucius’s departure. “That’s..that’s very interesting.”

“Yes, quite.” Draco waggled his eyebrows at Harry. “Mother and I are both in alt over it, frankly. And you may rest assured my Father will _never_ hear about this, Potter.” He swept an expressive hand over the tea trolley, lips twitching. “Do cease fussing. There’s nothing here left to concern you.”

“I wasn’t!”

Harry’s hackles immediately rose up at the insinuation that he, of all people, was afraid of that scurrilous creature Lucius Malfoy!

“I was just--I mean, the War is _over_ , Malfoy.”

Harry wanted to say ‘Draco’ but the ‘Malfoy’ just stuck itself in there, perhaps because of his inner upset. He took a deep breath, just as Hermione had shown him, and deliberately paused. The correct words would come to him, if only he gave them a chance--and they did.

“Right. I just wanted...I just wanted to know how it turned out for you and your family, that’s all. I mean, I...” He took refuge in staring down a particularly odd looking tropical plant, avoiding his old nemesis’s piercingly direct gaze assiduously. “I do know you love your parents very much, Draco.”

“Yes. He does.” Narcissa interceded, setting aside her untouched tea and rising, the seafoam green of her light morning robes swirling about her. “A blessing for which we are grateful. Now, I believe I will leave you both to your business. Good morning, Mr Potter. Draco, darling?”

“Mum?”

“Darling.” Narcissa paused partway across the lintel, smiling sweetly at her son. “A word with you later, if you please. There is much to accomplish before you leave for Hogwarts. As it happens, I have a full set of all the usual Manor incantations tucked away. The proper ones, given me by your Malfoy grandmother, dear-- _not_ your father’s devilish alterations.”

“Oh! Brilliant, Mother!” Draco smiled freely at his mum, the sunbeams kissing the platinum of his hair as they altered infinitesimally. “Of course. Good morning.”

“Goodbye, Mrs Malfoy,” Harry said, rising, propelled in part by the realization that he’d been at Malfoy Manor far too long. “It was nice to see you again.”

“Sit, _do_. Bit hard to converse if you’re hovering there, right? And no, really, Potter,” Malfoy smiled, resuming his seat opposite Harry’s chair and placidly sipping his tea as if he entertained old school rivals daily. “No offense intended--or taken, I’m sure. My father’s a minging cad and an absolute wanker, so I’m sorry for teasing you. I merely wished to set you at ease and that seemed a familiar way to go about it.” He grinned beguilingly. “Especially as you’ve brought me a present.”

“Oh, yes, that.” Harry groped up his bathrobe sleeve and fumbled about for the wand in question, producing it with a feeble sort of flourish. “This has all been, um, distracting, but here you are. Thank you again for letting me use it.”

He thrust it out in Draco’s direction, ever more grimly determined to flee back to Grimmauld at next opportunity.  Visiting attractive old ex-enemies so frightfully early and clad only in his night kit had probably not been the most well thought out plan-of-action, especially given the way those ex-enemy eyes had kept trailing attentively all over Harry’s state of deshabille. Unmistakable flirtation initiated by same was just absolutely not on. Unless it wasn't flirtation at all, but Harry wasn't a complete babe-in-the-woods, and he had his suspicions alright.  

“All in good order, too.” Harry caught Draco’s eye deliberately, quashing his passing bogglement in favour of business. “I had Mr Ollivander look it over for you, just yesterday. No harm done.”

“‘Letting you use it’, Potter?” Draco rolled his eyes. “I hardly think that was ‘letting’ you.”

“Yes it was,” Harry shot back instantly. “Now, please take it.”

Draco said no more but accepted his wand with the hand not occupied by his biscuit. He tipped it this way and that to examine it cursorily. “Looks perfectly fine,” he pronounced. “Thanks, Potter. Much obliged.” It was shoved up the fitted sleeve of his elegant dark burgundy velvet morning robe without further adieu, as if it were of no great consequence. “Was that all, then?”  

“Ah, okay? Yes.”

Harry frowned his confusion but decided this was his definite cue to take his leave. A thing, he told himself, he was glad to do! And if Draco was going to be so cavalier about his wand, it was his business, the ungrateful twat; Harry was done with this entire silly business.

“Right,” he announced loudly. “You’re terribly welcome, Malfoy, it was no trouble at all, and now I’ll just be...just be on my way!” He rose to his feet, making certain to secure his dressing gown about him and looked longingly towards the great double doors. “If I could trouble you for use of your Floo, that is. The Elf Door was a bit strange, you see. Er...Grimmauld cellars are also a bit strange. Rather not repeat the experience.”

“Of course, Potter,” Draco agreed genially, standing.  “I quite understand.” Harry stared at him; it was almost eerie, how polite they were both being with each other. “Please. Right this way.”

In but a moment he’d been suavely ushered out of the Morning Room and off to the Malfoy’s formal Floo point-of-entry, a spacious and echoing marble-lined chamber dominated by the largest, most ornate fireplace Harry’d had ever the fortune to view. An entire flock of sheep could have been easily spit-roasted inside its vast polished white expanse; that is, Harry thought,  should anyone ever have the excruciatingly poor taste to even attempt such a thing in such a fucking posh residence!

“Here. Floo powder.” An enormous urn made of a highly polished, highly carven Slytherin green stone stood upon a small teak pedestal beside it. Draco gestured, indicating Harry should help himself to handful.

“As you can see, Potter, we are on the Floo Network again,” he remarked blandly. “In the event you’re ever again struck by the sudden urge to...er, call in.”

“Oh fuck off.” Harry snorted, irked by the tiny lift of Draco’s lips. “As if I would!” He’d enough of having Draco take the piss. “But you should thank me; it’s not as though you won't be needing your wand. We’ll all have a work cut out for us, what with Restoration.”

“Naturally.” Draco accorded Harry a sort of awkward half-bow, which came across as both comical and a bit tentative. “I suppose I just wasn't really expected to ever see my wand again, you know? Bit surprising, having you turn up in my wine cellar with it.”

“Yeah, well,” Harry flushed guiltily. “Sorry about that, but I couldn’t think of a better way to get here. I knew the Manor was in Wiltshire but I didn’t think you were on the Floo, what with Voldemort and all,” he flapped a hand vaguely, still not taking up any Floo powder, “and I just couldn’t face all those hours bashing about on a borrowed broom looking for your house. I mean, what if you were UnPlottable, right?”

“We’re not, as it happens. But I can understand your hesitation, Potter.”

“Well, I didn’t know that, did I?” Harry shrugged, feeling less awkward at hearing Malfoy’s sympathetic murmur. “So, when I was talking it over with Kreacher last night--he’s my House Elf, or rather the one that came with the Ancient and Honorable etcetera House of Black, you know?-- _he_ said that, what with one connection and another, I was practically family with you and that would entitle me to use the Elf Door. See? So I did.”

“So you mentioned.” Draco smiled. Politely but also rather as if he wasn't silently castigating Harry as an utter lackwit. “And, indeed, so you did, and to my benefit,” he added agreeably. “Thank you for calling. Again.”

“Right.”

“Yes.”  

They both stood there for a moment, Draco stolidly smiling rather as if he wasn't sure what else to do and Harry feeling much the same. They both furtively glanced at the Floo.

“Well,” he said, after a far too long moment of subtle shifting in his slippers and fidgeting; clearly Draco had nothing further to say in the matter. “Yes. Thanks again. For the tea, I mean, this time. And for not Hexing me on the spot when I showed up in your wine cellar. I guess...I guess I’ll be going?”

“Right,” Draco replied. “Do.” Harry was pretty certain it was definitely still the friendly sort of smile and not the other sort. Although both their smiles seemed to be fraying. “Have a good day, Potter.” Of course he was still calling Harry ‘Potter’. “Thanks for my surprise birthday gift, yeah? Much appreciated. Inexplicable, but appreciated.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, finally palming a handful of iridescent Floo powder and edging closer to the gigantic hearth. "Not really, but whatever." He stepped inside, peering back over his shoulder. “Um. Wow, this is enormous, isn’t it? Suppose you know that, sorry. Ah. See you again, then.”

“Good day, Pot--”

Stumbling out onto his own hearth, back at Grimmauld, which was grand in its own dilapidated way and nowhere near as tidy, Harry shook his head over the whole experience, grumbling internally. Partially in wonderment over exchanging niceties with Narcissa, partially because Floos always left him dizzy.

Draco left him dizzy, too, apparently.

But, there, he told himself bracingly as he made his way up to his suite. Mission accomplished, thank Merlin. Hermione would be chuffed with Harry; Harry was pretty chuffed with himself, actually. And it hadn't even been too, too awful, amazingly enough.

Going for his wardrobe with the intention of finally changing into something a little more suitable before he Floo’d off to the Ministry--Kingsley had requested him to, especially; something about wanting to discuss a scheme for ‘private reparations funding’--Harry truly couldn't help but feel fairly proud of himself.

He really had managed it, having a civil conversation with Draco Malfoy. And his formidable mum! It couldn't help but bode for a better working relationship, or at least a far less nerve-wracking one, when they all headed back to Hogwarts _en masse_ at month’s end to help with the Restoration.

Still? Thank Godric he’d nearly a full month ahead of him before he had to see that snarky git’s face again!  


	2. June 6th, 1998

 

“Along the aisle between the tables he walked, and he spotted the three Malfoys, huddled together as though unsure whether or not they were supposed to be there, but nobody was paying them any attention.”

Harry leaves the Great Hall under his cloak. May 2, 1998. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

 

**June 6th, 1998**

 

“Fuck,” Harry exclaimed succinctly. It was the crack of dawn and he really didn't want to be awake quite yet but London was proving to be enjoying an annoyingly sunny streak of fair weather. “Fuckity fuck-fuck. Damn it all to Hades. I’ll just have to go back to Malfoy Manor.”

Because Draco’s errant wand was just right there, planted firmly on Harry’s nightstand--or rather, some ancient Black family relic that served the purpose--and there was no denying it.

“Kreacher!” Harry shouted, propelling himself from his nice lovely bed and throwing his ratty old dressing gown about him. He toed his feet into his slippers and darted out into the musty hallway. “Kreacher, I need that damned Elf Door again!”

This time there’d be no faffing about, Harry swore to himself. He glanced at the wand he’d gathered up on his way out the door. It wasn't any different than when he’d seen it last, shoved up Malfoy’s very natty robe sleeve. No glowing, no Spell residue, nothing strange. But, the damned wand was at Grimmauld Place and not at Malfoy Manor and fuck, but Malfoy was going to be seriously narked off when he realized!

Time, Harry knew, was of the essence. If he could just get it back to the Malfoy house elves, they’d make sure to return it to Draco. Snobby, that was the one he’d talked to. On the QT, as it were, and hopefully before Draco even noticed it had been missing. He’d just slip through the door, explain that to Snobby and bounce right back to Grimmauld again, quick as winking.

“Kreacher!” Harry bellowed, fetching up in his own cellar, approximately in the same place his Elf had Summoned the mysterious Door into existence the morning prior. He stuffed down the strange sense of disappointment blooming within his empty belly. Now was not the time to be obsessing over Draco Malfoy. Or a lack thereof. “Kreacher, there’s absolutely no time for you to--”

“Yes, Master Harry, of course Master Harry,” Kreacher croaked, popping into existence at Harry’s elbow and giving him his usual shock of surprise. Damn but House Elves were sneaky little gits! “I’m right here, Master Harry, ready to fulfill your every desire, oh Great Saviour of the Wizarding World--and all us unfortunate Elves, held in thrall to Dark Wizards. As I am always--and what _may_ I do for you, Master Harry, this early in the morn’?”

“Oh!” Harry stepped back, giving Kreacher a little space. “I have got to insist you wear something decent, Kreacher!” That tea towel was absolutely grotty and he made a mental note to do a little shopping soonest. “I’m afraid I have to return to Malfoy Manor,” Harry said, firmly ignoring Kreacher’s unhappy whinging at the thought of replacing his beloved tea towel. “Would you mind doing the thing, whatever the thing is that you did yesterday? With the Elf Door?”

“But of course, Master Harry,” Kreacher bobbed his head, and indeed, most of his entire person, in eager agreement. “If that is truly what you desire. It would be Kreacher’s very great honour and pleasure to send Master Harry again to visit his dearest, most loving relatives, the Mistress Narcissa Black and the young Master Draco.”

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Harry said, bobbing about a little himself, but more from impatience and the fact that his cellar was chilly and a little damp. “Then could we please do so? I’d like to get there and back before anyone notices. It’s not exactly a social call this time.” He waved Draco’s wand about somewhat frantically, nearly stabbing himself in the eye. “Not that it was last time, either. More a matter of ‘get in, get out’, right? Like the War, only with no Cursing people. Very hush-hush.”

Kreacher widened his eyes at Harry, pursing his lips.  

“Oh, Kreacher is sorry to hear that, Master Harry. Kreacher has so looked forward to you exchanging visits with Master Draco and Mistress Narcissa--and Mistress Andromeda and young Master Teddy, of course. But,” he grimaced sadly at Harry’s look of mild horror, “I will of course do as you require, Master. Through here, Master! Mind the gap.”

It wasn't so much a ‘go on through’ motion as a being propelled firmly, willynilly, pellmell, what with Kreacher’s gnarled little hand somehow planting itself in the centre of Harry’s spine and bloody launching him.

“Fuuuck!” He nearly fell arse-over-tea kettle as he entered the familiar bounds of the Malfoy family’s massive store of alcoholic beverages. “Come on, was that really necessary?”

Kreacher, naturally, did not reply, being on the other side of the Elf Door  

“Fuck.” Harry repeated, righting himself, and peering around hopefully for that same Malfoy House Elf as yesterday to appear. “Snobby?” he called out tentatively, after a long moment of remaining alone in the half-light of the dimmed sconces. “Oh, Snobby, are you about, by any chance? Here, Snobby, Snobby, Snobby!”

“... **_Potter_  **?”

“Yeep!” Harry squeaked, jumping quickly to one side as Draco Malfoy sprang up in being, literally right under his nose. “What the ever loving fuck, Malfoy? Why do you always do that?”

“Well, Potter,” Draco observed calmly, rocking back on his well-shod heels and making a business out of examining Harry’s robe-and-slippers. “I could say the same myself. May I ask why you are once again mooching about in my Merlots? Or is that something I should just accept in the future? You have a hitherto unbeknownst issue with regular Floo travel, mayhap? Or is it just you’ve grown accustomed to sneaking into everywhere you go?”

“Oh, fuck you too, Malfoy,” Harry growled. He thrust Draco’s wand out, resisting the impulse to whack the arse across the face with it. “Stop pestering me when I want to do you favor. Look here! Look what turned up by my bed! Your bloody wand, is what, and I don’t know why and I don't even care why, I just want to give it back to you, alright? You don’t have to be a git over it.”

“Hmm,” Draco hummed. He reached out and took the wand easily from Harry’s hand. “Interesting,” he said after giving it the barest of glances. “Not bewitched, no Dark Magic; I agree that’s very odd, Potter. Not really a full-on ‘I simply must barge into someone’s house at 6 o’fucking-clock’ odd but strange all the same.”

“I’ll say it’s strange, you ungrateful berk! Well, then,” Harry huffed, feeling justified nonetheless. “There you go. Keep good hold of it this time, why don’t you? I’ve told you, you’re going to need it at Hogwarts soon enough.” He squinted at Draco as the thought struck him. “In fact, I’m not even sure how you managed without for this long. Been wondering about that, you know. Now, that’s _very_ odd.”

“Suspicious fool.” Draco fixed Harry with a gimlet glare. “I’m very well versed at Wandless; have been for ages. Which you might recall, oh Oblivious Boy, if you’d been paying the slightest bit of attention to anyone other than your own little Gryffindor jerk-circle all these years. But no, I’m not at all surprised you haven't been. Story of my life, really.”

Harry gaped.

“Now,” Draco went on, swiftly catching up Harry’s frayed sleeve and using against him so as to gently wrestle them both into an arm-and-arm. “Tea, Potter. Like civilized folk. In my rooms this time; Mother’s not yet downstairs. Come along with you.”

“Wait, why?!” Harry wailed, just as Draco Apparated him. He barely felt nauseous upon arrival; he must be growing accustomed, he decided peevishly. “I mean, damn it, Draco. I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion! Why do we even have to have tea? Is that a thing for you, Malfoy--like you say sneaking in is a thing for me? Which it isn't, by the way, and I’ll thank you not to say it is! I’m just--I mean, circumstances have sometimes required that I have had to enter--”

“Spare me the excuses, Potter,” Draco ordered, handing Harry a lovely mug of perfectly brewed builders and nudging him neatly into a capacious armchair. “I was just about to have mine; you can join me and explain yourself further. Though you are entirely too excitable for me to endure this early in the day. Drink up and breathe in, will you? Like a real person. We do have to talk, apparently.”

“Didn’t I just say that? Oh, ta.”

“You’re quite welcome. Now! Wands don’t just hop about of their own volition, you know. And I can't be returning to Hogwarts, recently exonerated Death Eater that I am, carrying about a questionable wand--or one that won’t obey me. So, spill.” Draco jabbed a forefinger at Harry’s scowl, matching it elegantly. “Everything you know thus far, Potter. Everyone you’ve talked to about this wand, everything you learnt. You said you spoke to Mr Ollivander? We need to get this sorted. He’s the expert, start with that, please.”

“Um…” Harry stalled, fidgeting. “Alright,” he allowed, grudgingly. “Well, I--”

Contrarily, he took a sip of his tea. There was a lot he needed to process here, not the least of which was how his dick was reacting the sight of Draco Malfoy smirking at him in a friendly way, and pardon him, but he felt a bit pressured. Not a feeling he enjoyed and certainly not something he wanted to endure from the one truly persistent annoying arse in his life. Ron aside, that was. At least Ron was Harry’s unquestionable mate, his friend, his stalwart companion. With the added advantage of being completely _not_ a person Harry was interested in shagging. Ever. Ew!

Swallowed, patently ignoring the look of building irritation on Draco’s face.

“--suppose I--”

“For fuck’s sake, Potter!”

Draco Malfoy, however, was just a very tenuous re-acquaintance with whom Harry might possibly one day form a shallow friendship.

“Hey! Wait a second here, Malfoy.” The memory struck with the force of Bat Bogey. “You say you know Wandless? Exactly how much Wandless and how did I never know about that?” Harry demanded peevishly. “That’s fucking cheating!”

“Oh, around five hundred specialized Spells, Jinxs, Hexes and Charms, I suppose, and maybe another five hundred or so to do with the basics of the Manor and estate.” Draco lounged back into his armchair, exuding ‘smug’. He sipped his tea in silent reproof, sniffing at Harry’s aggrieved frown.  “Relax, Potter. Very few of those are Dark, believe me. And it’s hardly ‘cheating’. You’d be more versed in Wandless yourself if the bloody Carrows and Umbridge hadn’t taken over Hogwarts. Or if you hadn’t buggered out of lessons altogether. Not that I begrudge you for doing so; I’d have buggered off too, if I could’ve. ”

“Still. Five...hundred?” Harry replied faintly, boggling. At the most, he might know a few dozen Wandless and even Hermione hadn’t learnt more than one hundred. “What the fucking fuck, Malfoy?”

“Potter.” Draco affixed Harry with a questioning glare. “Yes, alright? This isn’t a contest. It’s a skill of mine, if you must know. Not everyone is as facile at Wandless as I am. But I have a question for you, if you please. Why, exactly, are you addressing me by my given name, right out of nowhere? _I_ certainly don't recall us ever being on a first name basis. We’ve always been ‘Potter’ and ‘Malfoy’. It’s unsettling, is what, you changing it up.”

“Oh!” Harry grinned, diverted. “That’s easy enough, _Draco_.”

He quite enjoyed the little spurt of delight he felt when Draco visibly flinched.  It wasn't so bad, this sitting-and-conversing-over-tea routine. Or, even if not truly ‘conversing’, at least managing to both not lose his temper on sight and successfully exchange information, which was nearly as good as. Harry found he’d at least a million questions bubbling up in in his brain even as he was sat, sipping a brilliant cuppa, sanguine under Draco’s irritated glare--which was really weird, considering they’d spent nearly a decade in constant proximity without ever exchanging much beyond puerile insults. And Draco’s glare was strangely comforting.

“Is it?” Draco snapped, nostrils flaring. “Do tell. _Potter_.”

“No, no. It’s as Hermione says, a New Era of Peace,” Harry made the appropriate air quotes, “and Unity for All, Muggleborn and Pureblood Alike. Haven’t you heard? I thought you might’ve, what with feeding me unpoisoned biscuits yesterday and not hexing me on sight at least twice now in twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, Merlin, Potter.” Draco groaned, burying a grimace into his free hand. Frowning in a pained, long-suffering fashion, he gingerly peeped at Harry through his fingers. “Please not that. Please not you, too. I truly don’t believe I can withstand it.”

“‘Me too’?”

“Lovegood’s already buttonholed me about it,” Draco explained to a secretly delighted Harry. “You know how she does that thing where she just _looks_ at you? The thing with the guilt?”

“Hmm-mm,” Harry nodded, fascinated.

“And my Mum’s made me promise a million times over that I’ll play nicely with others when we all return for the Restoration. But, this is like an epidemic, Potter! I’m sorely disappointed, hearing this rubbish from your very own Golden Boy lips. I admit I was rather counting on you for a little sporting banter-and-scuffle, now and again. Just to take off the edge, you understand.”

“You were, were you?” Harry prompted happily. “Is that so.”

“Yes, of course.”

Draco drew his hand away from his face, sweeping his fingers through his pale hair and ruffling it. Harry shifted abruptly in his seat, crossing his legs and dropping his cup and saucer abruptly to lap level in hopes of concealing his erection. His unexpected, very unwelcome erection. He held his breath fiercely, willing it to go away as quickly as it came. Merlin, who the fuck knew he could fancy Draco Malfoy? And who knew his poor body could even come up with a surprise stiffie, given the ghastly events of the War?  

“I was,” Draco confirmed ruefully, shaking his silken head. “But now I’ll have to rethink. It seems you’ve been turned for the civilized, unfortunately. At least in regards us Slytherins.”

“Uh...hah!” Harry grunted, nodding along to whatever Draco was babbling on about, whilst all the while silently begging his body to get over itself right smart. “Really, is that so? You think?” He’d more pressing things to worry over and not the least of them being how he and Ginny had ended it not in small part due to Harry’s marked impotence! “Yes, carry on; I'm listening!”

“Er, I just have done, Potter,” Draco said, employing once again that ironic eyebrow. “Lovegood, remember?”   

Oh!

“Right, right!” Harry gargled, barely hearing a word being said to him. “Just--just thought there was more to it, is all.”

Oh, _right_. He actually did know that already. And if he hadn’t sorted it out for himself, Hermione and Ron had certainly managed to point him in the proper direction. Harry winced, wrenching his eyes away from Draco’s very interesting features and inviting hair and turning determinedly to examine the private suite he’d been shanghai’d to. It was, he decided instantly, exactly as posh as he’d assumed it would be.

“Oh, no, I’m done, really. I was just teasing you. I don’t mind it, really, the bosh about Unity. Can’t be a bad thing, can it? Potter?” Apparently Harry’s retreat into mental self-flagellation had became noticeable. Draco leant forward, fully alert. “Er….Potter? Something amiss?”

“Ah, no, no! Not at all! Sorry.” Harry subtly readjusted himself behind the cover of his mug, the rush of of remembered anxiety having finally done the trick. Nothing like recalling one’s lack to create a whole new lack, right? “I was just--just admiring your room.” He gestured vaguely at the gilt-and-marble grandeur. “Very, um...ah. Golden.”

“Very _not_ mine, Potter,” Draco replied promptly, glancing about. “This is the Master Suite, not my old rooms. I’ve not really had a chance to move in properly, not since Father’s vacated the Manor.” He twitched a brow up, inviting Harry’s understanding. “It’s been a very…active time, lately. Barristers calling morning and night, all the scrolls and deed work involved in transferring the entail. Setting up the Reparations Trust--all that Goblin Gobbledygook I’ve had to translate! Bah! But, I’m sure you’ve been just as rushed. I can’t imagine McGonagall’s made a single move corning this Restoration without you, am I right?”

“Yes, you are; I’m apparently tasked with most of the heavy lifting,” Harry grumped sourly, eyeing his lap. His unruly prick had best continue to behave. A flushed and bothered Draco Malfoy in a minor snit was a very stimulating Draco Malfoy indeed. “It’s all blah, blah, blah, most powerful and all that rot. Not that I really mind it. The work, not the rubbishing titles. That shite can just stop.”

“Well, that’s only natural, Potter.” Draco smirked. “McGonagall is by no means an idiot. Of course she’s going to choose you. It’s only politic.”

“I guess so, but.” Harry huffed, leaning back and finally daring to meet Draco’s gaze directly. “I’m a bit sick of it, aren't you? I mean, we’re all supposed to be resting up and regaining our strength, preparing ourselves as best as we can, at least those of us who had somewhere we could go other than Hogwarts. Instead it’s been all late-night meetings and early morning Owls and unexpected Floo calls and visits from strange solicitors about Wills and Executorship and what-have-you--”

“Oh, yes, that! Not to mention tidying up the hideous mess the Dark Lord and my father’s other ill-chosen companions left behind here,” Draco interrupted, his eyes lit with a martial light. He joined in on the litany of complaint with enthusiasm. “Then having to deal with Gringotts--those bloody Goblins are right arsed off, I tell you!--and then it’s off to the Ministry in my spare time--half the bloody Wizengamot is either fled the country or else beavering away flat out--can’t get a single thing accomplished--”

“Oh, yes, and Hermione’s so very pissed off she’s missing it--” Harry chimed in. But only barely, for Draco was barrelling on yet. “Being in Australia and all…her parents, you know?”

“-and the Aurors! Oh Merlin, the bloody Auror Corps, Potter! Because of course, on top of everything else, I also have to meet with the Aurors whenever it pleases them, and run through everything I can Pensive so they can hunt down those Death Eaters who escaped after the Battle. ‘Course, they already have the run of the Manor and the grounds, which isn’t a bad thing and I’m not complaining, Potter, mind you, but there’s no such thing as actual peace-and-quiet, is there? Damned exhausting, I say! Tell me you’re not run ragged and I’ll not believe you for an instant. You must have it even worse than me. _Saviour_.”

Draco slouched back again, breathing a bit hard.

“Yes.” Harry slumped over his now tepid mug of tea, keeping his eyes anywhere other than those faintly flushed cheekbones and flashing grey eyes.  “Yes, I do. And now there’s this weird thing with your wand, Draco.”

“Yes, my wand. What’s going on with my wand, Potter?”

“Dunno.” Harry lifted a single shoulder, flapped an aimless hand. “I really don’t understand it at all. Truth is, I did have Mr Ollivander examine it thoroughly before I gave it back to you yesterday. But not just for your benefit. For mine, too. I wanted to make sure the Wizarding community never was forced to deal with another Elder Wand situation.”

“As if!” Draco snorted. “Please, Potter.”  

“But,” Harry shrugged both shoulders at Draco’s scoff and annoyed grimace. “But he assured me that it wouldn't be a problem. ‘The wand always chooses the Wizard, Mr Potter, of that you may be dead certain’, he said. ‘This wand here has always been the property of Draco Malfoy, even before he entered my shop nearly twelve years ago now,” he said.” Harry tried to make his  voice sound like Ollivander’s, ignoring Draco’s nearly silent snicker. “Stop it, you! I’m trying to recall everything he said, just as you’ve asked, alright? You don't have to mock me for it. Anyway, then he told me straight out you’d never had the makings of a Dark Lord in you and never would, so I shouldn't bother my head over it and just go ahead and give back your wand.”

“Which you did do, Potter,” Draco observed, not quite openly grinning at Harry’s aggrieved face but certainly on the verge of it. “I was there; I should know. I thanked you, even. Sincerely. Honestly, it’s rather difficult to forget you popping around my home like some demented Elf, dressed in your unmentionables.”

“Argh! Will you please just shut your gob about my bloody pajamas, Malfoy?” Harry demanded. “Strikes me we have more important things to worry over. Don’t we?”

He leant forward, discarding his tea altogether, grasping at Draco’s sleeve. A little Wandless of his own had Draco's wand neatly in hand once more.

“Oi!”

“Oi, yourself, Draco.” Smirking, Harry sat back immediately, brandishing the reclaimed wand before him and sending up tiny trails of red-and-gold sparks. “Hah!”  

“Thief!” Draco groused. “You have some cheek!” He folded his arm across his chest and scrunched up his lips, regarding Harry from beneath a thunderous brow. “See here, if you’re not concerned I’ll become some maniacal monster and if Ollivander’s fully convinced you I’m otherwise harmless--which I wouldn't necessarily agree with, mind, but in this particular instance is definitely true enough--and then as you’ve already given it me _twice_ now, why in Merlin’s bloody ball sack would you want to take it away, Potter?”

“I don’t, really,” Harry explained. “It’s not how I meant it.” He twirled Draco’s wand idly. “It’s just I’d like you to take it back formally this time. Expelliarmus, alright? Instead of me just handing it over. Understand?”

“Mmm, I see your point,” Draco hummed, frown erased. “Well, alright then. Though you could’ve just said. Expelliarmus!”

The wand wrenched itself from Harry’s grip and sailed smoothly over the short gap between them, smacking itself firmly onto Draco’s open palm.

“And….there you have it, Potter,” Draco grinned. “Or rather, _I_ have it, which was the point of all this. Now, did Ollivander say anything else about it?”

“No,” Harry shook his head, scouring his memory for any passing remark he might not have recalled. “Nothing, really. He just repeated ‘the wand chooses the Wizard’ a few more times and sort of smiled at me oddly all the while, nodding away like he had palsy. That was a little strange, but not overly so. I mean, he did just live through a very upsetting experience as a prisoner--oops, sorry!”

“No, not for Ollivander,” Draco agreed, apparently not quite catching Harry’s gaffe. “He’s a barmy old bird. I’ve always wondered exactly how old he really is. I mean to say, 382 BC, Potter! That’s a bit long in the tooth, even for a Wizard.”

“Yeah,” Harry laughed, “it is. Although I think he’s seriously considering retirement now, what with--”

He stopped talking abruptly; Draco had twigged and thus blanched, the hand holding his newly reclaimed wand gripping it so hard his knuckles had whitened. Harry was terribly afraid the stupid wand would simply snap.

“I’m sorry!” he said quickly. “I--I didn’t mean to mention it again, for what it’s worth. Not like that, at least. It’s just--it’s just he’s really old and I think it’s.” He flapped his hand, trying to express the feeling he’d had, visiting with the elderly Wizard who’d endured so much at the hands of the Death Eaters. Even if Draco’s secret kindnesses had kept him alive during his long imprisonment, it had still exhausted his resources. “You know he told me that the Death Eater’s could never break into his shop? That the wands themselves wouldn’t allow it. They choose the Witch or Wizard who’ll have them, you see. And they won’t go to just anyone. But Ollivander had to spend his magic all that time, feeding the wand’s spirits. They’re a bit animate, you know. The core of them definitely; the casing as well. It’s fascinating, really.”

“Oh.” Draco relaxed as Harry jabbered on, tacitly agreeing to being distracted. “Yes, I can see that. Makes sense, doesn’t it? I wish I’d known he was keeping the wands from the Death Eaters, I’d’ve tried to do more--”

“No!” Harry said urgently. “You did _enough_ , Draco. You kept him alive, you kept Luna and Dean alive, and even _me_. You didn’t rat me out; didn't even think about it. I could tell, just from looking at you. Stop blaming yourself. You’re not responsible for Ollivander being captured and held; Voldemort was. He's the real villian, remember? You’re not the one who got me Snatched in the first place. Instead you gave me the means to get me and my mates out of there--and you bald-face lied to your batshit crazy auntie! That took some guts, Draco! Don’t think I don’t know it.”

“Shut it, Potter. Just--just shut it. Enough!”

Draco flushed scarlet, then paled to the colour of cold porridge, jumping up to his feet. He paced away from Harry and the hearth, stomping restlessly ‘around the room.

Harry watched him cautiously. This wasn't quite what he’d had in mind when Kreacher had pushed him through the weird little portal earlier. Get in, hand off the bloody wand to some random and conveniently discreet House Elf, and then bloody make tracks back to his own house. _Not_ deal with Malfoy having a meltdown over all the harm he’d done as a baby Death Eater.

“Potter.” Harry looked up, curious. “It's enough. You need to understand. Listen!”

Draco had come to an abrupt halt before him and had a hand stuck out, directly under Harry's nose.

“What?” Harry asked, shying back a bit. "What's enough now?" 

“Look, it wasn't quite like that, but then again it wasn't quite not. I’m not some hero, not like you. Stand up, will you?”

“...Okay?” Harry did, hesitating. The rather wild gleam in those grey eyes had usually presaged some random act of idiotic maliciousness. But that was before. “I’m up. What now, Malfoy?”

“You!” Draco cackled, eyes rolling wildly. “This!”

He took up Harry’s hand, gripping it strongly.

“Shake it, will you? Officially making peace, we are. Right this fucking moment! And stop faffing around with what you call me. Am I going to be ‘Malfoy’ or am I going to be ‘Draco’ from now on? Because you’re driving me spare, trying to sort this all out. It’s worse than Sixth Year ever was--I can’t decide between clocking you a good one or snogging you stupid… not that you aren’t already stupid.”

“Oh, ooooh! Is that how it’s going to be, Malfoy?” Harry nodded his head so hard it hurt his neck a little. “Got it, sorry! I’m on the right page now, believe it.”

He made certain to shake Draco’s hand as hard as Draco was shaking his, which had the bilious effect of making the tea in his stomach slosh and his head spin. The mention of snogging did fuck-all to kill his doggedly persistent hard-on but, if Draco was a little barmy, then Harry could be even barmier. Like Peeves, but corporeal!

“You’d damn well better be, _Harry_ ,” Draco growled, tightening his grip so it was painful. His eyes glittered with a hint of his old maliciousness. “Mate.”

Harry met that vicious gleam and matched it. “Right, absobloodyfuckinglutely, _yes_. We are _friends_ now, Draco Malfoy. Best mates, even. I'm so much your chum I’ll be sure to drop by Slytherin Commons when we all go back and announce it, alright? We can even sit together at meals, have little revising sessions, make up some red-and-green sparkly “Unity” badges and--”

“Merlin, Harry, stop. You’re such a prat.” Draco dropped Harry’s hand as if it had burnt him, jumping back two paces and staring at Harry in open horror. “Do not dare! Do not. I shall deny everything, I swear. I’ll claim amnesia and pretend to not know you.”

“Are you certain?” Harry pressed on, grinning wickedly. “Because I have no issue with letting it be known, Draco. Draco, Draco, Draaaacoooo, my friend, my mate, my new favourite Slytherin! There, is it clear enough now? You have _your_ wand, you _took_ your wand, it’s not _my_ wand anymore ‘cause the wand _chooses_ the Wizard, agreed?”

“Uh-huh.” Draco nodded slowly. “Um? Are you certain you’re quite alright, Harry?”

“I am perfectly fine; don’t ask me that! And, and,” Harry gabbled on, driven by any number of nameless devils in his head, “you’re supposed to be mostly harmless and you still know five hundred Wandless spells?”

“More than that.”

“Regardless!” Harry flapped his robe belt impatiently. “That’s bloody insane.” His prick had reawakened with a vengeance and not even he believed that it was just that he needed to use the loo. “You’re the same age as me! Which is amazing, appalling and also something I cannot even really being to fathom right now but also I don’t care so much, okay? I don’t care! ‘Cause I’m--”

“You’re?” Draco echoed, clearly bewildered. “Mental, maybe?”

“Late!” Harry bellowed. “It’s true, I’m terribly, awfully late, Draco! So if it’s all clear, as crystal, then I really need to nip off. Right. Fucking. Now. I’ve got Kreacher waiting on me. He’s fucking irascible when his routine is buggered with, you know? I didn’t get my brekkers yesterday because of your bloody ‘comfortable’ tea! Need to go, mate!”

“Yes, alright, enough already!” Draco scowled horribly and half turned away, presenting Harry a broad shoulder and a severe profile. “Bloody go, Harry. You obviously want to.”

“I do,” Harry replied, making haste to the hearth. “I really, really do.”  

“Fine!” Draco swept along after Harry. “Get your bloody arse out of my bloody house and--and take your bloody distracting pajamas with you!”

“What?” That brought Harry up short. He squinted at Draco suspiciously. “They’re not distracting, they’re--”

“Right, whatever, _mate_ , just go, will you?”

“--perfectly adequate sleeping--”

“Shut it, you nutter. Good morning!” Once again Harry found himself with a hand at his back, urging him on. Draco used his other one to press a generous pile of powder into Harry’s palm and inserted him bodily into the Floo. “Fare thee well, fuck off, see you in a month! Grimmauld Place, damn it!”


	3. June 7th, 1998

“'Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn’t it?’ said Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry and Hermione through. Happiness would come, Harry thought, but at the moment it was muffled by exhaustion[].”

On the way to the Headmaster’s study, May 2, 1998. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

 

**June 7th, 1998**

 

“Fuck. Not again.”

Harry regarded the two wands nestled together on his nightstand with one baleful bleary eye.

“Fucking Malfoy; fucking wand; fucking _why_?”

Repeated blinking did not correct the situation. Nor did sticking his specs on his nose and peering intently. However, the early morning light was again absolutely glorious, pouring through the windows Kreacher had evidently found time to clean now that Harry was living in Grimmauld. Of course all the bright lovely late spring sunlight instantly served to remind Harry of certain huge airy spaces, chockablock with poncy fit Malfoys clad in natty robes and sporting  far-too-charming-for-a-bloody-Slytherin grins.

Which it did, Harry thought. Dismaying, true, but there it was. ‘Mates’, his bloody bum! As if that git would ever call Harry ‘Harry’!

“Bah!”

Irked, he dragged himself out of bed forthwith and stood for a moment, examining Draco’s recalcitrant wand. Expelliarmus was apparently not the key to ensuring that a wand returned to the control of its master and this time Harry wasn’t about to go prancing off to the Manor and simply hand it over. ‘Fool me once, fool me twice’ and all that rot.

Truth was, Harry honestly didn’t dare. Who knew what might happen next with Draco? The bloody twat was obviously volatile!  

This coil, Harry decided, tsking and leaving both wands where they were for the moment, required a Think. Certainly his real mate Hermione would advise him to have one. Likely his real mate Ron would do too, but only because it was Malfoy involved. Ron had been even wonkier on the subject of Draco than ever before, since the Fiendfyre thing. He’d taken to humming loudly whenever Harry had mentioned Draco. ‘Weasley is Our King’, it was. Only in passing, of course. It wasn’t as though Harry mentioned Draco all that often.    

Which set Harry to wondering, as he wandered down to breakfast,  just how often he had mentioned Draco to Ron and Hermione during their international Floo calls, because it seemed that Ron was very often humming.

The majority of a pot of tea and the better part of a full English later, Harry had composed an Owl. He’d send Kreacher out with it to Diagon’s Owl Post whilst he was busy with his bath. The onus of action would then be handily handed off to the dastardly Slytherin who was so careless with his possessions.  

 

 _Dear Draco,_ it read, I _have_ your _bloody wand_ **again.** _Come and get it, you knob, before I toss it in the rubbish where it belongs. May as well plan on popping down to Hogwarts with me after. We need to speak with Mr Ollivander posthaste. Sincerely, Harry_

 _PS,_ he added after a moment’s reflection, _My address is as follows. It’s under Fidelius and I’d quite like to keep it that way. If you open your gab and tell Skeeter, I’ll have your bollocks for Potions ingredients. Expecting you momentarily, HP_

_PSS, Incendio this Owl immediately upon reading, mate. HP_

 

“Hah! Chew on that, Malfoy!” Harry tromped off to his lav, feeling in a froth. An Owl was less than ideal, but he was at a loss as to what to do next.  Well, Hexing Draco would be satisfying but that was hardly to the point, was it?

“You fucker!” Draco Malfoy accused stridently the second he caught sight of Harry, elegantly tumbling out of Harry’s bedroom Floo as if he owned the place, and affixing his still-damp, toweling clad quarry with a searing gimlet gaze. “As if I would _ever_!”

“What the everloving fuck, Draco?” Harry shrieked, hastily tucking his bath sheet around him. “How did you get up here? ‘Ever’ _what_?”

“Your house elf directed me.” Draco drew himself up in affront, aquiline nostrils flaring. “Plus also, you’ve just invited me, remember? Oh, colour me amazed; you’re not bloody dressed!”

He looked Harry over thoroughly, from his blushing piggy-toes, all shrunken from the bath water, to his mop of towel-tousled seal-dark locks. But especially he sized up Harry’s bath sheet, which, contrarily, was both sagging _and_ clinging.

“Of course I’m not! I was having a bath!”

“I see that. You know,” Draco grinned, “I should’ve known to expect you’d not be decent for visitors, Potter. Tell me, do you ever wear actual garments these days or is it become”--he made the air quotes--”the New Era of Wizarding Unity and _Nudity_?”

“Nudity?! I’m not nude, you tosser!” Harry gasped, tugging at his towel, and working very hard at not stamping a foot in sheer rage. “I’ve got a bloody acre of toweling on my body!”

“Nevertheless, you,” Malfoy observed mendaciously, “are demonstrably not wearing any real clothing, Potter.” He looked about him imperiously, eyes alighting on the armchair set before the window. “Pardon, me, I meant to say _Harry_.” More air quotes were employed. “Hmm, mind if I sit whilst I’m waiting?”

“Fuck right off, Malfoy! I wasn’t expected you to just come through with no warning. Fine, sit if you want to. I shan’t be long.”

“You’re certain you wouldn't like me to leave?” Draco questioned, bypassing Harry’s singular armchair and helping himself instead to the bed. “No personal boundaries left at all, Potter?”

“What's the point, Draco?” Harry demanded, ripping open the wardrobe doors and grabbing at the first clean clothes he found there. “Seven years of living in a dorm; I’m sure you’ve seen another bloke’s willy.”

“Oh, I have,” Draco agreed, extending a hand idly across the bed and wiggling his fingers, effectively helping himself to his wand--and also to Harry’s. He flexed his pale blond brows at Harry lasciviously and began twirling the two wands effortlessly. “Amazingly enough, though, I’ve somehow missed out on seeing the Saviour’s. So glad I’ve the opportunity to rectify that omission. I’ll be sure to confirm to _Witch Weekly_ that the size of your dick matches the size of your heroic reputation.”

“Pervert!”  Harry shucked his towel and shoved himself into his denims and another old Cannons t-shirt he’d stolen from Ron. He had a whole collection of them; Draco would likely call them all rubbishing. “Talk about being a rudesby. Nobody invited you here to stare at my arse, ta very much, and--and my dick is perfectly normal--as is everything else!”

“Calm yourself.” Draco chuckled, Wandlessly Charming the wands to sending off House-coloured sparks in tandem. Harry feared for a second his curtains would be set afire but  they all Vanished harmlessly, the red and green sparks. “I’m merely appreciating the view. It’s a lovely arse you have there, Harry. Not exactly feeling compelled to share it with the seething masses though, you know? Not even maddened Hippogriffs could drag this momentous Pensieve from me.” He sniffed. “Certainly not _that_ credulous cunt.”

“Wait, what?” Frowning thunderously, Harry stopped in the midst of flinging his old school robes about him, the boring old black settling like a dark cloud over his tense shoulders. He stared at his old school rival, who sat perfectly composed and admirably be-suited and be-robed in some expensive shade of burgundy. “ _You_? You’re--you like Wizards, too? Like, ‘ _like’_ like?”

“Somehow,” Draco replied dispassionately, “I have managed to comprehend that execrable excuse for proper verbiage you’ve bent into an actual question, but yes. Certainly.” Draco nodded sharply. “Not that it’s mattered much, what with the War being on. Rather quells your romantic teenage urges, having a no-nosed madman hijack your puberty. Hard to wank, really. Impossible to bloody shag.”

“Well!” Harry exclaimed, adjusting his sleeves and wandering over to plop himself down next to Draco. “That’s news to me. Here I thought you and Parkinson were an item and now you’re telling me that wasn't true? Why’d you go the Ball with her then, if you fancy blokes?”

“Here,” Draco handed Harry over his wand, having ended the Charmed Gryffindor-hued spark-shower, “have yours back. And please tell me you’re not actually seriously asking me that. It’s not just one sort or the other that I fancy. Oh, but _you_ , Potter!” he chortled.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” With a mocking grin, Draco flung himself backwards dramatically, one arm across his brow like a fainting Victorian heroine. “If _I_ never got any, how could _you_ possibly have? With No-Nose Himself always after your blood? _I_ don’t think so!”

“You! How would you even _know_ that?” Harry flushed, inexplicably reminded of Ron’s incessant humming. “Not that I’m admitting anything, Malfoy.”   

Draco snickered. “Oh, come on, Harry, it’s only logical! Lighten up, will you?” He writhed about Harry’s bed, laughing infectiously. “Merlin, to think the Golden Boy’s a total blank in the shagging department! Imagine the headlines if I _were_ to tell Skeeter!”

“Shut it, it’s nothing to laugh about,” Harry grumbled, hitting his mattress with a thump. “I had a proper girlfriend and everything, Draco. She was even interested in doing it, you know? It’s not fair, damn it!”

“Nothing is fair, Harry,” Draco replied, smiling like a loon. “But, really, think of those imaginary headlines, will you? ‘Purity Potter Pines for Perverted Pairing!’ ‘Sex-Starved Voldemort Vanquisher Cutely Admits Cluelessness!’ And maybe the best one ever: 'Boy Who Lived Hasn’t _Really_!’”  

As he said them aloud, every one of those imaginary headlines appeared, floating in the space between mattress and canopy, written in trailing scrolling lines of gold and silver smoke.

“See?” Draco pointed. “Now you know what they’d look like!”  

“Merlin, but you’re a mad fucker!” Harry grinned and flung his wand aside, leaning over Draco so he could tackle him--and sneak in a muttered Tickling Charm for revenge. “Two can play, though. Beg for mercy, Malfoy, I dare you!”

Draco howled and fell about laughing even harder, flopping about on the bed and shrieking through his nose, begging Harry breathlessly, “Finite, you h-heartless git--Finite!”

“Fine, Finite.” Relenting, Harry rolled his eyeballs behind specs gone askew from their scuffle. He rolled back over and off Draco, unpinning him, and fell to regarding the canopy with a jaundiced eye. “Seriously, you great nosy wanker, exactly when did I ever have a chance to do anything with anyone? I’ve been busy!”

“Oh?” Draco, regaining his breath, side-eyed Harry dubiously. “But there was the youngest Weasley, wasn’t there? _Ginevra_ ,” he drawled out each syllable. Harry scowled at him defensively. “Many freckles, lovely bum, wicked Bat Bogey Hex; I recall her quite clearly.”

“Leave her out of it, Malfoy!”

“Cho Chang before that, right? You cannot deny you weren’t flirting with that poor Hufflepuff, Cedric What’sit. You followed him about like a smitten mooncalf the entire Tri-Wizard. You had to have at least snogged one of them. Heavy, I mean. Not just a peck on the cheek, Potter.”

“What if I was?” Harry met Draco’s curious look straight-on. “And what if I did? What, are you keeping tally of my bed notches now? As if you weren’t practically jizzing your Snidget-printed knickers over Krum and those Durmstrang fellows.”

“What? You saw those?” Draco’s nostrils flared with white-hot rage. “Were you _spying_ on me, Potter?”

“Of course I was; same as you, Malfoy!” Harry shot back. “Don’t deny it; I saw you. Fawning over them, acting like everything they said or did was purest gold. Have a hard-on for men in uniform, do you?”

“Poppycock, Potter,” Draco snorted, abruptly sitting up and setting himself to rights with care.  He flicked a speck of lint in Harry’s direction, the teasing light entirely erased from his gaze. “I did my fair share of drooling over those beauties from Beauxbatons too. Let’s not impose limits, shall we?” He glanced away, affecting disinterest. “I was merely curious. Like everyone else. Is that a bloody crime? I don’t think so.”

“I’m not saying it was a crime, Draco,” Harry began, but Draco flipped him off.

“Enough, Potter; it’s all ancient history.”

“Oh, but--”

“Ancient history,” Draco repeated shortly. “Very boring.”

He stood up and moved toward the bedroom door, laying a hand on the knob and glaring at Harry with great impatience. “Well, Potter?”

“Well what, Draco?” Harry sat up, head spinning just a bit. Altitude and attitude, what? “What do you want?”  

“Well, come on then. Don’t just sit there like a lump. Did you not Owl me with some urgency just now, stating you wanted to scamper down to Hogwarts and speak to Mr Ollivander? We should be on our way then. Enough frittering.”

Harry stared. He’d known Malfoy was mercurial, of course. However…

“...Fine. Give me a moment.” Harry shrugged amicably. There were some battles that just weren’t worth fighting. “I need shoes.” He lifted himself off the bed and slouched toward his wardrobe, but not before giving Draco another keen look-over. He was pleased when the hard-faced plonker flushed and coughed, turning his head away abruptly.

“Ahem! Alright, but be quick about it. Mother’s up my arse to dispose of Father’s collections of private ‘memorabilia’ and I can’t be all day over this.”

“Yes, yes. I’m coming, alright? Hold your Hippogriffs.”

Harry, having donned socks, finished shoving his feet into his trainers, Wandlessly Accio’ing his own wand in a silent show of ‘anything you can do, I can do too, git’. He and Draco exchanged matching killer glares; clearly they were once again out of charity with one another.

“We’ll Floo over to save time. McGonagall said the Floo in the Headmaster’s office is always open for me.” He smirked at Draco’s snort and long-suffering eye roll. “One of the perks of being the Saviour, Malfoy.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Draco shot back instantly, opening the bedroom door and politely ushering Harry out of it. “We all know you're ever so special. Shall we?”

“Right-oh,” Harry agreed and suffered himself to be rushed down the stairs and whisked promptly through his own fireplace.   One mildly nausea-inducing trip had them tripping out into Headmistress McGonagall’s Floo and a greatly abbreviated explanation had them approval to seek out Mr Ollivander.  

“I do not see a Merlin-blessed thing amiss here. This wand, boys, is perfectly and completely normal,” Ollivander pronounced after a lengthy examination, which Draco spent fidgeting all through. “All right and tight, not a speck of Dark Magic to mar it.”

The two of the had finally tracked the old man down in the Library. He seemed much improved from when Harry had seen him last. In fact, he and Madam Pince were bollocks-deep in process of working to set the many toppled shelves and scattered scrolls and tomes to rights. Sniffing, Mr Ollivander handed the wand back to Draco.

“Here you are, then.” He sent a reproachful look in Harry’s direction. “I’m not quite certain why you felt the need to have me look at this again. It’s in pristine condition. Same as it was when I looked at it last.”

“But, sir,” Draco protested. “You say that, but there _has_ to be something amiss with it.”

“I say that, Draco Malfoy,” Mr Ollivander stated sternly, “because I _know_ wands. Wands are my _business_. For a very _long_ time. And this wand here is normal, Mr Malfoy. Not a thing wrong with it.”

“But--but it’s not! It keeps returning to _Potter_ , here. That’s not ‘normal’, not in my view. It should stay with me...er, shouldn’t it?”

“I say it is, young man.” Ollivander beetled his eyebrows sternly. “And you say you doubt me. Are you absolutely certain you performed the ritual of return _properly_?”

The wandmaker looked from one to the other of them, doubt writ large on his aged brow.   

“No, wait, Mr Ollivander! No, hush for a moment, Draco.” Harry, catching Draco’s contagious anxiety, had to speak up. “Just let me--let me explain, alright? Mr Ollivander,” he said earnestly, “Draco’s wand has been literally coming back to me. Every night now, for days. It appears on my bedside table, right next to mine.”

“Oh, really? By your bed, you say? And right next to yours, is it?” Ollivander raised an enquiring eyebrow. “Hmm, you didn't mention that particular development when I last saw you, Harry.”

“Well,” Harry rushed to say, “it’s new. It wasn’t doing it when you saw it last; it couldn't have been because I hadn't  tried to give it back to Draco until after that. But, as we’ve told you, it’s not behaving like a normal wand should. Always appearing back in my bedroom in the morning, budged right up with mine, and even Draco’s disarming me of it with Expelliarmus hasn’t let him keep it with him beyond just the day, you see--so it’s not right, really. It isn’t. He’ll be needing it for Restoration, Mr Ollivander; we really must fix this!”

“Ahem!” Ollivander cut in sharply. “I believe _you_ are forgetting the foremost item of importance when dealing with wands, Mr Potter. The wand _always_ chooses the Wizard. Never the opposite!”

“Yes, but--”

“No, no,” Ollivander continued, shaking an admonitory forefinger at Harry. “That’s a wand’s imperative. Its prerogative. This wand here,” he went, glancing at the length of wood firmly resting in Draco’s hand, “is without doubt the property of one Draco Malfoy--as I’ve confirmed twice over.” He frowned meaningfully. “However, perhaps you are unaware that a Wizard’s or Witches’s wand may also choose to indicate the _personal_ preferences of the owner?”

“Um, pardon?” Draco interjected. “Whatever in Salazar’s name does that mean, Mr Ollivander? Are you daring to say that my wand is--?! That it fancies _Potter_?”

“It is to say, Draco,” Ollivander replied smoothly, nodding as if this were common knowledge and he was ever so surprised to discover that these pestering Hogwarts students weren’t aware of it, “that just as a Patronus may reflect the most joyful image engraven upon the heart of a Wizard or Witch, a wand may also choose to indicate that individual’s object of affection.”

Harry opened his mouth, glancing from an abruptly whey-faced Draco to a beetle-browed Wandmaker.

“Oh...ah. Oooo...”

“Honestly, I am not certain the Hogwarts curriculum is not a bit faulty in regards to wand behaviour.” Mr Ollivander shook his head dolefully. “No doubt it was the influence of that abominable Witch Umbridge. Horrid female, always meddling in things that did not concern her!”

“Oh, Salazar’s saggy--” Draco wailed, throwing up his hands and nearly tossing away his wand with it. “What are we to do _now_ , Potter? Get _married_?!”

“Very possibly so, Mr Malfoy,” Mr Ollivander offered up cheerily. “If it is as you both say, then I’d have to conclude you have a genuine Wand Bond. Marriage is often the result of such events, you know. As there’s very little to be done about it once a wand chooses. It’s not something that happens often, but when it does?” He winked sapiently, tapping his nose. “It’s nearly irrevocable.”    

“Ah?” Harry frowned heavily, considering Ollivander’s revelation. A wand choosing its Master’s love interest? Well! That was certainly news to him! And likely Hermione as well, who, even with all her acumen and love of Magical minutiae, had never so much as mentioned this passing! But ‘irrevocably’? That was a bit terrifying, on way too many levels. “Shite!”

“...No!” he heard Draco whisper frantically. “No, no, no! This cannot be!”

“Well, if you’re quite done with me, I’ll be off now,” Mr Ollivander told them, already shuffling in the direction of Madam Pince. “Good luck with it, boys--oh, and don't forget to invite me to the wedding. Doubtless we’re all in need of an excuse to celebrate such a fortuitously joyful occasion.”  

“W-Wed-Wedding! Fucking, frigging, fractious Fuath, Potter! Say something, damn your eyes!” Draco commanded Harry, seizing him by the elbow and yanking him roughly away from a still-muttering Ollivander. “This cannot be happening, Harry. How am I ever supposed to explain this to Mother? I am eighteen-bloody-fucking-years old, _Harry_. She’s going to flay me alive for this, I know it!”

“Fuck! Your mother?!” Harry’s eyes widened in instant sympathy. “I can’t see her being too thrilled, Draco.”  

“You don’t say!” Draco sneered. “So, fix it!”  

“How in the hell am I supposed to fix it, Draco? It’s your bloody wand that’s doing it, not mine!”

“Well, you caused it, Harry, so you have to make it right, you bloody fucking Wizarding Saviour!”

“Will you just stop? That has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with--oh, bloody fuck, Mrs Weasley, too!” Harry groaned, hard-struck by the vision of having to explain to Molly Weasley, vanquisher of Draco’s mad Auntie Bellatrix.  “She’ll have my hide, for certain.”

“Pardon?”

Harry nodded. “Me and Gin, you know?” This was all too true, unfortunately; Mrs Weasley had made no secret of her great hopes for Harry’s juvenile romance with Ginny turning into something more official with time. “She’s already muttering dark things at me when she thinks I’m not listening!”   

“Shut it--and stop going on about Mrs Weasley. You. Are. _Not_ helping!” Draco hissed, leaving go Harry’s arm and grasping him ‘round both shoulders instead, so that the two of them were propping up each other, nearly nose-to-nose in a frantic huddle. “It’s my bloody mother we should be worried about,” he repeated, giving Harry a little shake. “Do you have any idea what a Black Witch can do when she’s fucking _cross_ with you? _Do you_? All I can say is, Potter, thank fucking Circe and Brede both my father will never, _ever_ hear about this!”

“Alright, no.” Harry drew in a breath and held it, setting his hands gently on Draco’s hips to steady them both. "Just...no." After a long moment, he let it go, puffing it out in a long stream through his nose. “Stop that. Stop shouting at me, stop with the weird panting thing you're doing now; you’re going to have us both off our pins if you keep twitching like that. We’re making each other mental, Draco. We have to be calm.”    

“What, Potter? Calm, is it?” Draco groaned, tottering and leaning even harder against Harry without apparently realizing. He dropped his head onto Harry’s shoulder, mumbling into the fabric. “I cannot be married at eighteen years of age. I just can’t. It’s absurd, is what.” He lifted his head and blinked after the distant Mr Ollivander after a moment. “Calm, you say? But, Harry, we--we’re not! We don’t! We haven’t _ever_! It’s not at all like that. ‘Affections’, he said? I mean, I want to shag you rotten, have for fucking ages, but that’s not--that’s not _even_. That’s just shagging and we’re totally not even--you barely even--oh, Salazar, Harry! How can this even be possible?”

“Yes, well,” Harry replied grimly, amid a welter of miserable memories induced by the last damned Magical prophetic interference in his young life. A forced relationship with an old enemy didn’t exactly sound appealing. The shagging, however…

He shook his head to clear it, frowning. Lifted a hand to grab at Draco’s chin, so he could force the young man to face him. “Look, I’m not getting the impression we can just...make it stop. I mean...I mean I don’t think I can just ‘fix it’, Draco. We can ask Mr Ollivander again--”

“Then ask him, Harry! Don’t just stand here and tell me you’re fucking sorry! Do something useful!”   

“Oh, hullo, boys,” Mr Ollivander chirped, reappearing by the table where they were standing. “You’re still here, then. Talking over your futures, what?” He smiled, twinkling at them. “Rather a lot to take in, I should imagine. Your mother will be so pleased for you, young Draco. She always did wish to have more children about the Manor, you know.”

“You! Yes, about that!” Draco abruptly unhanded Harry and whipped about, his fair hair flying. He jabbed a finger at Mr Ollivander. “Steady on, there, sir. You said ‘almost’, not ‘always’, so there has to exist cases in which the wand bond has been broken. Ended amicably, or whatever. So? How can we make it stop, Mr Ollivander? Surely there’s some way to Finite this?”

“Hmmm, I see. You’ve reservations, do you?” Mr Ollivander looked from one to the other of them, taking in Harry’s grim expression and Draco’s wild eyes. “Right, then; not taking this well. I suppose it’s understandable.  P’raps you ought sit down, the two of you, and have a spot of tea. And some chocolate. Or even simply a mug of hot chocolate and some nice biccies. I’m sure Madam Pince won’t mind it, not given the circumstances. A little sugar will do you both good.”

“Why would we require _tea_?” demanded Draco, although he sank gracefully into a chair, snagging Harry’s arm on the way and taking him along with, “and why would are you recommending _chocolate_? Are you telling us there’s no reversing this, Mr Ollivander? That’s it--we’re stuck, just like that?”

“Well, yes. It’s good for shock, young man, the chocolate,” Mr Ollivander replied kindly. “Obviously. Now, I’ll just be a moment; want to clear it with Madam Pince, don’t you know, before I ask the Elves. Sticky substances and books, all that. They generally don’t mix.”

He bustled off to very back of the Library whence Madame had disappeared, making his way about tumbled over study carrels and sad little piles of damaged tomes, leaving Draco and Harry to stare blankly, first at the scarred tabletop and then at each other, silent as tombs and just about as full of cheer and levity.

In less than a half-minute, a tray appeared before them, with a complete tea service, a pot of chocolate and a heap of chocolate biscuits.

“Oh...look at all the chocolate,” Draco murmured, after a while, mournful eyes scanning the tray and making not the slightest attempt to ingest any of it. “Biscuits, petits-fours. Oh, Harry. This _is_ bad.”  

“...Draco,” Harry said gently. He’d been assessing the situation as he now knew it; at least they weren’t already married, right? “Come on, buck up, will you? There’s been worse things happened to both of us. And Ollivander didn’t definitely say there was no solution, did he? Think positively, alright? There’s likely a means to just tell your wand what’s what. Tell it it’s mistaken, maybe. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“Potter,” Draco groaned, scrubbing a long-fingered hand across his unhappy expression. “Potter, I don’t think you quite comprehend the gravity. It may not be all that much an inconvenience for you but this is _my_ wand. I can’t be having it seeking you out like a bloody horny homing pigeon every single fucking night, now can I? People--m’Mother!--will talk!”

“Your mother doesn’t need to know, Draco,” Harry replied quietly, pouring them out both a cup of the hot chocolate. He shoved one toward Draco. “Here, drink that down. No one needs know, not if we don’t tell them. Look, I see Ollivander’s coming back. We’ll ask him again, that’s all. If we keep at it, chances are he’ll have to tell us something useful eventually. And if there’s one thing we’re both good at, mate, it’s persistence.”

“Don’t say ‘mate’, Harry James Potter.” Draco shuddered. “I may want, now and again, to bugger your sodding brains out but I do not want to be forcibly mated, stupid addled wand or no! And, if you’re not one hundred percent correct about there being a solution for this horrifying situation we’ve found ourselves in, I’ll have your fucking todger for potion’s ingredients. Now, eat your bloody biscuit!”


	4. June 8th, 1998

“But it was applause. All around the walls, the headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts were giving him a standing ovation; [...] and Phineas Nigellus called, in his high, reedy voice, _‘And let it be noted that Slytherin House played its part! Let our contribution not be forgotten!_ ’”

In the Headmaster’s study, May 2, 1998. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

 

**June 8th, 1998**

 

“Fuck you, Potter! G’way!”

“Okay, don't be angry,” Harry said, the instant he stepped through Draco’s personal Floo. He advanced upon the bed, waving Draco’s wand before him. “It’s not like I can help it, is it? Here. Take it back again, will you?”

Draco blinked at Harry from his nest of pillows. “Fuck, is it morning already? I know it’s too fucking early to deal with this shite.”

“It’s not ‘too early’,” Harry informed him, plopping himself down on the edge of Draco’s giant bed. “It’s half ten and I have to be in London for a memorial service at noon, so if you could just--”

“Whose?” Draco demanded, sitting up abruptly and snatching the proffered wand out of Harry’s hand. A great whiff of Ogden’s fumes rolled off him and nearly felled Harry where he sat. “If it’s the one for the fallen Aurors, I also must attend; Mother said so.” Draco swayed, looking bilious. “My cousin, Nymphadora, she was--”

“Tonks, yes,” Harry interrupted, surprised. He stared at Draco with wide eyes, a weird pleasure at the news suffusing him. “It’s for her as well as the others. That’s...well, that’s very kind of you, Draco. I didn’t think you or your Mother would even consider--”

“Shut up, Potter!” Sneering, Draco cast himself out of his bed and made for the loo, going greener with every step. “Don’t make me out to be some sort of Golden Child. If you must know, m’mother and Auntie Andromeda have already formed a rapprochement,” he flung over his shoulder, fumbling the knob and stumbling, “for the sake of the baby. It’s only fitting I attend. Don’t make that face at me! Ugh! I’m going to go chunder now!”

“Well, hey.” Harry, confronted by the abruptly slammed loo door, stared around the room. “At least he didn’t Hex me.” He suppressed the urge to reach out and poke at the wand Draco had so carelessly left lying about on the bed clothes. “Wonders never cease.”

“Merlin fuck! Snobby!”

After a few minutes Harry heard Draco start up a ruckus in the en suite, though mostly it was muffled by the sound of rushing water and clanging.

“ _Snobby_! Dribbly, Sneazle, Wobbley!  Any single one of you, please come! Master Draco is in dire need of a Hangover Potion!”

“Oh-ho!” The sounds of an Elf popping onto the loo and the rattle of a shower curtain being ripped to one side nicely disguised Harry’s disgruntled mutter. He poked at the wand again, scowling. “That tosser, I knew he’d been into the Ogden’s.”

“What the fuck, Malfoy?” Harry burst out as soon as Draco emerged from his ablutions, dripping on the posh carpet and clad in a paisley dressing robe that practically shrieked of the immense amount of Galleons it cost to acquire it. “Did you come back here yesterday and get straightaway trollied? Is that why you never answered any of my Owls, you wanker?”

“If you must know, yes,” Draco said wearily, disappearing into an adjoining room stuffed to the gills with rack after rack of robes, shirts, trousers and whatnot. “It’s what I used to do, back in Sixth, when the pressure got to me.”

“Me too, sometimes,” Harry admitted softly, nodding. “Till I…”

“Couldn't afford to, yes,” Draco called out. “Had to be on my toes twenty-four seven or that maniacal madman would’ve AK’d me on the spot.”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it abruptly, giving the wand a surreptitious pet.

Draco reappeared in a twinkling, the dressing gown cast off for some equally expensive and very finely tailored matte black mourning attire. Harry stared and then looked down ruefully at his own togs--his same old, same old school robes, albeit as neatly pressed and darned as Kreacher could make them.  

“Not saying that I’ll be doing it soon again, though,” Draco sighed, flitting off to an armoire and selecting silvery cuff links and a matching tie clip. “It was just such a ghastly shock, the bloody wand bond that absolutely no one has ever thought to mention! I confess I found the Ogden’s tremendously efficacious for my mental health. Better than any sodding chocolate biscuits, at least.”

“Really?”

“Problem, Potter?” Draco sniped, catching sight of Harry’s expression as he scooped up his discarded wand and flung a silk tie about his collar in one smooth motion. “Are you ticked off I didn't invite you, mate?” he jibed, deftly knotting his silvery silk tie. “No matter; I will next time, I promise. Now, are you ready? We should Floo over early; pay our respects to Minister Shacklebolt.”

“Wait, we’re going together?” Harry jumped up, already scuttling crab-wise towards Draco’s Floo. “That’s not really what I--”

“Nonsense, Potter,” Draco replied suavely, appropriating Harry’s elbow. He clamped it close, doubtless so that Harry wouldn’t bolt. “It’ll just be easier this way. That’s why I asked you to wait.”

“You didn't ask,” Harry snapped. “You left me sit for twenty minutes instead. Why would I ever want to go with you?”

“Because it’s polite, Potter,” Draco informed him calmly. “Because I’m a recently exonerated  ex-Death Eater and because you like to save people’s arses and I’m an arse I’d quite prefer you continue saving, alright? Also, we’re an item now, it seems. Mum knows about us; Mr Ollivander Owled her even before we’d finished our bloody hot chocolate. Why do think I got plastered to the gills as soon as I possibly could? But it is what it is. Might as well fly with it, right? Give the rags something happier to go on about.  Give some bloody joy.”

“ _Happier_?” Harry stared, his jaw dropping. “What d’you even mean, ‘ _happier_ ’?”

“It's--yes, definitely,” Draco replied seriously. “It’s going to be an ocean of funerals and memorial services, Harry, for quite some time to come.” He bowed his fair head, fingers pressing harder as if he were loath to leave go of Harry under any circumstances. “And I can’t sleep as it is already. I keep remembering...and it’s not nice, not nice at all. I rather imagine there’s a lot of us like that, right? So, we’ll be doing them all a favour, really; it'll go down a treat.”

“Yeah?” Harry was intrigued. “How so?”

“Giving them all lovely fodder for gossip that’s not redolent of the funereal, is what.” Draco grinned and dropped an unexpected buss on Harry’s crinkled brow. “Life cannot be consumed solely death and dying; at least that’s what my mum’s been telling me. Come on, Harry. Surely you can understand the power of a diversion? And a diversion is what people need right now. Trust me on this. Slytherins excel at social dynamics, I tell you.”

“Hmm,” Harry hummed, rethinking the concept of tactics, as apparently all Draco had really required was his mum’s approval. _He_ , however...well. He shook his head to clear it. “You know, _I_ rather think--”

“Yes, I am quite in the right, thanks, and right now we need to Floo off and be a bloody couple, Potter. Er... _Harry_. And you’re to address me as ‘Draco’, alright. More convincing that way.”

“I already call you ‘Draco’, Draco.” Harry pointed out reasonably.

“Yes, and it’s very confusing. Shut it, Harry. Take my hand.”  

Strong fingers grasped his, entwining them and squeezing as Draco reached across and palmed a handful of green powder. Harry twitched but didn’t pull away; somehow it still felt strangely comforting, for him to be attending a memorial service in the company of Draco Malfoy. At least _he_ would understand the things Harry didn’t ever really want to talk about. And they could continue to _not_ talk about them in relative peace and harmony. ‘Unity’, even.  

“You know,” he allowed, easing into place with Draco within the Floo. It was so large, Draco could stand full height. “You’re not anywhere near as much of an arse as you were before. I’m...a little glad you’ll be with me.”

“Ah, how delightful of you to say. Thanks, I think,” Draco replied levelly, casting his handful of green dust up the ornamented chimney. “The Ministry!”


	5. June 9th, 1998

“‘ _The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy_.’”

 The Final Battle, May 2, 1998. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

  

**June 9th, 1998**

 

“Why, good morning, Mr Potter,” Narcissa Malfoy smiled. “Spending the day with Draco again, I assume? Do be seated and have some tea whilst you await him. I doubt the dear boy is up yet; it’s rather early.”

“Thanks, Mrs Malfoy,” Harry replied, subsiding onto a different settee in the Morning Room. This one was a rose-gold colour. It was tucked away into a different alcove with two matching chairs and a low table, all guarded by a set of massive palms in pots. The fronds hung so low they cast fan-like shadows upon the tiled floor and dappled the ruby-toned Persian carpet that established the seating area. “As a matter of fact, he’s not up,” he confirmed, accepting the tea Narcissa poured for him. “And his personal Floo’s blocked or I wouldn't have been bothering you this early. Sorry about that.”

Once again the Elf Door had proved invaluable, Harry mused, sharing a wry and tentative smile with Mrs Malfoy. And Snobby no longer gibbered at him, but had led him forthwith to Mrs Malfoy’s regal presence--in the noted absence of the young Master.

“It was a rather a late evening for you two, was it not?” Mrs Malfoy continued to smile at Harry but there was a definite tinge of maternal prodding. “After three, I believe.”

“Yes, yes it was, actually.”

Harry buried his nose in his tea cup and decided on the spot that _he_ would _not_ be the one explaining to Draco’s mum that Draco had been caught out by a photographer sobbing in the Leaky’s loo. Nor that Harry had been right in there with him, the both of them rendered rather extraordinarily maudlin by the Ministry Memorial Service Honoring Aurors and Orphans of the War.

“Oh Merlin, that poor little baby,” Draco had blubbered, after, fortified in his creeping misery by no less than half a bottle of Ogden’s. “My own little cousin, and no parents left at all! And Scrimgour and all that lot--Burbage! Burbaaaage! Fucking murdered, Harry. Murdered!”

”And m-me? I’m-I’m a bloody War Orphan, too!” Harry had wailed, succumbing and collapsing upon Draco’s shoulder where they stood, tottering over the sinks. “Aren’t I, Draco? Aren’t I? The first one, really,” he’d hiccoughed, wincing as a teary-eyed Draco clutched him in return, muttering over and over under his breath, “”M’so sorry--sooo sorry! So many, Harry; there’s just so many!”

Tom, ever the pragmatist, had eventually extricated them from his Men’s, shooed off the inopportune reporter who’d followed them in (from a foreign publication, likely American, he informed Harry much later, and easily quashed by an irascible innkeeper, the incriminating film Incendio’d right in it’s camera), and marched them both off to a tiny private room. Where he’d installed them, scolding them both all the while.

Sobering Potions had been duly administered by a sympathetic Mrs. Tom and they’d both been sat down before enormous bowls of that indomitable Madam’s famous mutton-leek stew with mash.

“I’ve never really cried like that,” Harry had observed idly, sipping his butterbeer--all Tom would allow them--and watching as Draco elegantly sopped up the last of his gravy. The Leaky’s food was perhaps not the grandest, but Mrs. Tom had a way with throwing things into a pot and boiling them until they were filling and tasty--precisely what was needed when confronted by the reality of the grief the Wizarding World was suffering. “Have you?”

“No, not particularly,” Draco sighed. “At least not when I’ve been completely smashed. It’s highly unpleasant,” he added, rubbing at his still red-rimmed eyes. “I can’t say it’s particularly cathartic, either. I still feel like utter shite. You?”

“Same as you. Rubbishing. Yeah, and Hermione has always said she hated it, crying,” Harry offered up, nodding. “Ron, too, I guess. I know he couldn’t leave soon enough for Australia. Couldn’t bear to see his mum in that state. Or maybe it was the other way around.” He flexed his neck and shoulders, shrugging when Draco hummed sympathetically. “I know I’ve never willingly done so. Better to, I dunno, keep busy. Fix stuff, if I can. Leaves you feeling sick, doesn’t it? And it doesn’t make the problems go away, really. Doesn’t solve anything.”

“No, no it doesn’t.” Draco shook his head ruefully. “You know? I suppose that’s the second time you’ve seen me crying, Potter. I imagine you’d have laughed your arse off if it were even a year ago. Slytherin’s Prefect, bawling his fucking eyes out in a pub lavatory like a bloody baby.”

“...Maybe,” Harry allowed, gulping down the dregs of his butterbeer, eyeing his glass meditatively. The pint instantly refilled itself, to his great satisfaction. All that sobbing had massively dehydrated him, along with giving him a lingering headache. “But likely not. I know I certainly didn’t feel like laughing at you when I saw you in Myrtle’s loo.”

“Oh, really?” Draco raised a brow at him, settling back into his seat. He set his glass down carefully and propped his chin--still pretty pointy, Harry noted--upon one fist. “What did you feel, then? I rather thought it was pure hatred, myself. Certainly seemed like you wouldn’t mind seeing the last of me.”

“No!” Harry protested instantly, shocked to the core. “Gods!”

“Oh?”

“No, no, no!” Not even when Malfoy was at his most annoying and malicious had Harry ever truly hated him. That sort of hated was reserved for those who deserved it: Voldemort, Umbridge, Peter Pettigrew. “Fuck no, Draco! Merlin, that wasn't certainly wasn't hatred I was feeling, believe me!”

“Then what, Potter?”

Harry met a set of very steady, very serious eyes, ones that seemed to be searching deep into his soul. He shivered.

“You--you’re not a Legilimens, are you? Because I’d really rather you didn’t, thanks.”

“Well, I am, actually,” Draco grinned at him, but it was a tired smile and not at all a baring of teeth. Nothing mocking, thank Merlin. “An Occlumens, too, if you must know, but I’m not about to muck about in your head against your will, Potter. I’m merely asking. I thought maybe.” He paused and glanced away, looking uncertain. “I thought that maybe you’d just tell me, since we’ve become friendly. I’ve always wanted to know, you see.”

“I’m sorry!” Harry was filled with a rush of remorse. “I should've probably said it at the outset, Draco--back on your birthday, when I gave you back your wand--”

“Or tried to, at least,” Draco snaked in, squinting his eyes at Harry in a mock-frown. “Much good that did me, did it? Look what it’s done to us, my sodding wand. A fate nearly worse than death, even.”

“If you’re going to be that way about it, I won't tell,” Harry grumped, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting. Being compared to a fate-worse-than wasn’t exactly flattering. “You know that’s not my fault, the thing with your wand. You shouldn't hold it against me.”

“Should I be holding what happened in Myrtle’s loo against you, Harry?” Draco let his fist fall an leant forward across the table, affixing Harry with a piercing stare. “Or was that Sectumsempra you threw at me the ‘unfortunate accident’ Professor Snape assured me it was? Because we do have quite a history, you know. And it’s puzzling the shite out of me, trying to sort out exactly why my wand chose you, of all people. It makes no bloody sense.”

“I...I don’t know, really,” Harry replied, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward himself. He fluttered a helpless hand, filled with the conviction he needed to convince Draco he, at least, was no longer angry--hadn't been, really, for ages now. That he thought that the past was just that--the past--and that it was more than time to let it go. That he found he had an awful lot to say to Draco and a tonne of questions to ask of him but really none of them really had much to do with the actual War.

“You ‘don’t know’, Harry? How can you just...not know?”

“I don’t.” He sighed heavily, letting his hand flop down to the table. That it was perilously close to Draco’s clenched fist was not really an accident. That his fingertips just brushed against Draco’s knuckles was definitely not mere chance. “But I recall being terribly angry with you. Just so terribly, horribly narked off, and it wasn't even what you’d done, Draco, to Ron or to Katie--it was that you’d never once thought to just come talk with me!”

“...Talk with you?” Draco shook his pale head in obvious disbelief. “Just...talk with you, Potter? And that would have saved my parent’s lives how, exactly? And that would’ve prevented Voldemort from murdering us all in cold blood on a whim how, exactly?” he hissed, his voice rising subtly, nostrils flaring. “I don’t think so, Potter. There was nothing you could do--there was nothing anyone could do, not even Dumbledore! And you’d have Hexed me if I’d even tried it, of that I am certain.”

“No, you’re right, of course,” Harry nodded, averting his eyes. “Hard to chat with someone you think hates you, right?” It was painful, maintaining eye contact with someone who stared so accusingly. “I couldn't have helped you, I realize that now. But I would’ve, just so you’re aware. And I definitely would’ve after what happened with Dumbledore. By that time I knew, you see? I knew you were just like me, in some ways.”

“Caught up, you mean? Helpless? Yeah…”

“Yeah. That.”   

There fell a silence, pregnant with foul memories; Harry really couldn’t quite bear to look up. They’d been rubbing along fairly well up till now, or at least he’d thought they’d been, despite the thing with Draco’s wand, and maybe now he’d gone and ruined it all. Raw honesty wasn’t always the best policy. But Draco hadn’t snatched his hand away, either.   

“You know, Harry?” The lightest of touches presaged a warm hand settling fully over his. Harry turned his own palm up immediately, welcoming the touch. “You’re a fucking idiot. And so was I, alright? So, yes. I do believe you, Merlin help me, and now we’re never going to talk about Myrtle’s lav again--ever. If you dare bring it up, I will Hex you. Same goes for tonight; count on it. Didn’t happen.”

“Well, I’ll Hex you first, Malfoy!” Harry fought to keep the budding, unruly grin off his face and summarily lost the battle. When he finally looked up--they were still foolishly holding hands, like the idiots Draco had just called them out to be and it was difficult to tear his eyes away from that--he encountered the much less severe version of Malfoy. The version he’d really come to like, these last few days. “But yeah, okay. That’s alright with me. Not another word about it, I swear.”

“Good-oh,” Draco said, abruptly rising up from the table and finally taking his hand away. “I’m not exactly all for it, this talking about my feelings rot. Despite what m’Mother says.” Harry’s hand felt momentarily frozen without that warm weight; he winced. “Look, I have to be off now. It’s late and Mother will be wondering where I am. You alright here, Potter? If I go?”

“Yes,” Harry nodded. He glanced at the table and the remnants of their meal and the half-drunk butterbeers. “I’ll just go and see Tom about settling up before I go off too. G’night, then.”

“You should, Potter,” Draco replied, already half out the door and into the narrow corridor. “It’s your responsibility, after all.” He sent a glance over his shoulder, catching--and seemingly delighting in, from the way his face lit up in glee--Harry’s puzzlement. “It was you who asked me out, did you not? You ask, you pay; that’s how it works on a date. Ciao, now.”

“Wanker! It was not a date, Malfoy!”

Harry, leaping to his feet, nearly rushed round the table and dashed after him to throw that promised Hex, but Malfoy was already history, having Apparated on the spot. Wandlessly, of course. Even though he had the damned thing, Harry thought, he never seemed to actually use it. Everything was  but a wave-and-a-smile with him, with only the very occasional utterance of an actual Charm or Spell.

“Fuck that!” Harry grimaced at the empty space, still shimmering with snark.  “It wasn't,” he told the empty room firmly, glancing round it in annoyance. “A date.”

Of course, it had been pretty cozy, just him and Draco in Tom’s  private dining room, sharing a nice supper and a few butterbeers. And maybe there were flowers on the table and a pretty candle in a holder. And perhaps Mrs Tom had fussed over them a bit too much, twinkling slyly for all she was worth.

“Er...was it?”

Still frowning, he’d attempted to put the matter firmly from his head and Floo’d home--after paying Tom, naturally. With a generous tip, naturally.

Hadn’t even given it a single thought until earlier this morning, same as he’d valiantly not-thought about what Draco had said about shagging him, when once again he’d been greeted by the sight of Draco’s wand nestled right up against his own. And then been deflected, much to his frustration, by Draco’s private Floo being closed down.  

Harry crunched his teeth rather viciously into a ginger-treacle biscuit and chewed with stolid determination. A little thing like a closed Floo wasn't going to stop him from returning Malfoy’s fucking wand to him--even if it was more than a little awkward! Mrs Malfoy’s raised eyebrows and Slytherin speculation weren't ever going to be sufficient for Harry to admit he was coming to enjoy seeing that well-dressed snot every single day.

“--and _I_ will be staying with my sister Andromeda and young Theodore Lupin whilst Draco is helping with the Restoration. The plan being that--”

He was a _Gryffindor_ , wasn't he? Harry assured himself, only giving a half-ear to Mrs Malfoy’s apparent ordering of the universe. Her doings didn’t concern him overmuch; it was her stupid son who was proving to be the rub in Harry’s, what with his elegant arse and his just-shy-of-flirting comments and his flashes of soul-shattering humanity.

“--my sister will be in dire need of help, caring for such a young infant, and I’ve really no wish to leave England and join my disgraced wastrel of a husband at the moment, so--”

The horrid and inescapable truth of it, Harry had come to conclude, with all due unwillingness and in the wee hours of the morning, was that he, Harry, somehow fancied Draco like a mad thing. And desired to shag him right back again. Which was _awkward_.

“And then Minister-Elect Shacklebolt has been kind enough to consult us concerning the Ministry’s plan for the Anonymous Reparations Fund, something I believe you’ve also become involved in, Mr Potter--”

They were wand bonded, for instance. Not willingly, either. Draco had certainly railed against it and Harry hadn’t been exactly thrilled to death. People would most certainly talk. Harry hated gossip. Draco was quite correct in his assessment of his probable reception by the rest of Wizarding world. And they’d be working together in less than a month, toiling away at the Restoration, right along with a larger part of the people they both knew, all of whom _knew_ for fact that the two of them positively despised one another!

“--it being crucial that we all provide a united front in the healing, and I am naturally excited to officially hear from Mr Shacklebolt and the Wizengamot that all of the Hogwarts students have been absolved--”

Hell, yes, it was awkward. But! _Awkward_ was par for the course for a whole House full of people who adored to rush in to any situation, pellmell and damn the bludgers! Harry reminded himself of this cardinal point, as permanently affixed in the realm of Wizarding Britain as the bloody North Star, staunchly quelling all manner of guilt at the thought of his mate’s reactions. Ron and Hermione would understand Harry really hadn’t much choice in the matter...eventually. He hoped.

“--this will go a long way towards smoothing the path of true romance, will it not? _Witch Weekly_ will no doubt feature it above the fold. To think that my dear son, all these years, has been fated to--”

Probably, likely, maybe with a little persuasion and the succinct reminder they themselves hadn’t always gotten along so swimmingly. Perhaps Ron would stop singing that evil, evil ditty of Draco’s composition. Perhaps he’d just sing it louder. Harry ate another five biscuits compulsively, one straight after another. Mrs Malfoy didn’t even blink an eye at it, continuing on in her elegant modulated tones without pausing.  

“--be with you, Mr Potter. _And_ , I imagine that what with this Wand Bond you boys will be be seeing a great deal of one another even before that--is that **_not_ ** correct, Mr Potter? Mr Potter? _Mr Potter_!”

Harry nearly leapt out of his seat, only barely managing not to send his bone-china tea cup flying. The remains of his sixth biscuit did go, however. Fortunately Snobby was at hand to Vanish it, their ears flapping with anxiety. Mrs Malfoy had clearly descended way, way low in her pretensions if she was willing and happy to accept Harry as her son’s fated suitor, but apparently crumbs on the marble parquet were not a thing to be bourne lightly!

“Whoa! What’s that? I’m so, so sorry, Mrs Malfoy. I’m afraid I wasn't quite attending.” Harry scrambled about for an explanation of his intense woolgathering and instantly gave it up for a bad job, given the way Mrs Malfoy stared at him knowingly. Though what there was for her to _know_ , Harry couldn’t bear to imagine. Well, he could, but he didn’t really care to. “Um, sorry again, really I am. Now, er? What were you saying, exactly? Something about Draco, right?”

“Yes, Mr Potter.” Mrs Malfoy regarded Harry out of the corner of a beady light blue eye and nodded politely over her tea cup. “I had rather gathered you were distracted this morning.”

“I’m--I can’t apologize enough?” Harry ventured and did his Gryffindor best to look as if he were overflowing with compunction. He was, after all, of a House who tended to say “Ooops, sorry!” after the fact instead of asking permission. Poor Hermione, he thought fleeting. It must’ve been so difficult for her, all these years. “Um, it...it really was a late night, last night. I’m afraid I’m a little knackered, yet. A very...touching Memorial service.”

“Indeed.” Mrs Malfoy looked singularly unimpressed, but graciously moved on. “And your plans for the day, Mr Potter? Other than once again attempting to return my son his rightful property.”

“Oh! Well, I’ve come to give your son back his wand--of course,” Harry began, “and then I’ve had an Owl--”

“Mother!” Draco entered the Morning Room rather precipitously, blond hair all askew and clad in yet another sumptuous dressing gown, which swished behind him. “Have you seen Har--oh!” He stopping, catching sight of Harry’s decided smirk, receding blush and general presence. “You’re here, Potter,” he finished flatly. “I should’ve expected it, I suppose. Where’s my wand, then? Give it here.”

“Indeed you should,” Harry chided, getting up to stalk over to where Draco was stalled in the doorway and shove his errant Magical stick at him. “Take the damned thing, will you? And get yourself dressed. We’ve an Owl from McGonagall and we need to Apparate to Hogsmeade without delay. She expected us some time ago.”

Harry tried to sound as stern and managerial as he possibly could, which was difficult as he rather wanted to fall on his arse, laughing. Draco was truly a sight, with his fringe flopping down and his belt-robe trailing, a sleep-flush still tinting his pale features and pillow-creases still indented on one high cheek. Harry rather liked it, and definitely liked it a great deal more than seeing the chap bawling his eyes out or shatteringly hung-over.

“An Owl?” Draco accepted his errant wand without much more than a passing glare at both it and then Harry and did absobloodylutely the opposite of rushing away to find suitable garb for a jaunt. He leant against the doorjamb and peered down his aquiline nose at Harry suspiciously. “Why ever would McGonagall include me in an Owl she’d sent you, Potter? That’s absurd. Mother,” he said politely, turning abruptly away from Harry and advancing into the Morning Room. He took a seat next his mum, apparently unconcerned by the spectre of imperative Owls from McGonagall.  “May I trouble you for tea? Drizzley practically ripped me from my bed and wouldn’t give me any.”

“Oh, bother,” Harry sighed helplessly, wandering back to his own armchair and plopping his bum into it. “It isn’t at all absurd but of course.” He took up his own discarded tea, only raising a querulous brow at it when Draco Wandlessly, wordlessly refilled it with steaming fresh. “I should’ve known better than to expect you to exert yourself, Malfoy.”

“It would help considerably, Potter, if I knew what it was in aid of.” Draco cranked his chin to its highest heights and stared expectantly at Harry. As did Mrs Malfoy. It was a bit eerie, Harry felt, the familial resemblance. “I do have other obligations.”

“Fine!” Harry huffed, resignation suffusing him further. He downed half his cuppa and sat forward. “If you must know in advance, it’s because she’s had a specific idea about the Hogwarts Student’s Memorial Service--that’s just next week, you realize?--and she requires both of us to help her. Soonest,” Harry added emphatically, draining his tea with a gulp. “And foolish me fancied it would be just as easy to Apparate down to Hogsmeade together. Seeing as I had your wand already. And you’ll likely be wanting it.”

“Ah.” Draco’s face was a study: first annoyance, then surprise, then a grudging acceptance. He too tossed back his tea, earning a passing wince from his mother. “Right, I guess it’s need’s must, then. Give me a moment, Harry. I’ll be quick.”

He DisApparated from right where he sat, his abandoned cup-and-saucer left to themselves to settle gently back onto the tray. It was a mite startling to witness, even for a young Wizard such as Harry, who’d seen rather of lot of powerful Magic lately. And done some, but that was neither here nor there.

“Thank you--what?” Harry opened his mouth and then stopped speaking, blinking rapidly, as there’d been absolutely no sign of Draco using his newly restored wand to either DisApparate or deal with his tea. He turned his gaze back around to Mrs Malfoy after a long moment, she who sat quietly, albeit a tad smugly. “Um. Did he just?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes.”

“Er, does he often...?” Harry shrugged helplessly, not quite knowing what words he should use to encompass the situation. “Er. Do that? Here, I mean?”

“Constantly, Mr Potter,” Mrs Malfoy smiled. “Since earliest boyhood. I’ve always known he was particularly adept at Wandless; even Lucius and my much unlamented late sister Bella would comment on his facility.”

“Oh.” Harry considered. “Then...then was he alright when I had to take his wand? I was a little worried, you see.”

“You,” Mrs Malfoy smiled much more broadly, and Harry could clearly see where Draco had gotten his fair share of the Black Family charm, “are the dearest boy, to worry. I find I am not at all unhappy that I aided you in the Forest, Mr Potter. It has proven a most worthy choice indeed. Draco could do far, far worse for himself. And I say that to you not solely because you are our Saviour.”

“Oh! The Forest!” Harry jerked upright with a start. “I have to thank you for that! I haven’t, yet, and I really wished to. Without your help, I’d not have been able to--”

“Save us all?” Mrs Malfoy interrupted dryly. “Silly child.” She shook her head at him, the sunlight glinting off the platinum bits. It highlighted the fine lines on her face as well. For the first time Harry felt he could truly appreciate that Narcissa Malfoy was actually someone’s _mother_. “I hardly think you need thank me, Mr Potter. It’s more _I_ should thank _you_. For many favours, apparently. Not the least of which is your, ah, shall we say ‘relationship’? With my son.”

“But that’s not really,” Harry mumbled, feeling the onset of an embarrassed blush rising, no matter how he willed it away. “It isn’t, so much, um. I mean to say, it’s not _that_ difficult, really. Draco’s been very--very--!”

“...Very?” Mrs Malfoy prompted, when Harry fully misplaced his ability to articulate the Queen’s English. Because Draco was ‘difficult’ but in a good way. And he and Draco were definitely in a ‘relationship’, but was it really a _relationship_?

Harry goggled at Mrs Malfoy, unseeing. Had they been chatting each other up all this while? Were Draco’s passing mentions of lust for Harry genuine? Was Harry’s uncommon fondness for the sight of those two wands nestled together every morning a harbinger of something more?

Was the fact that he’d been able to wank again a blessing or a curse? Because he rather had, lately, and it was always to vague visions of tall, blond blokes with absolutely smashing arses. In frightfully posh robes.  

“Very _what,_ Mr Potter? Polite and courteous at the very least, I would expect. I do hope he has not importuned you for any romantic favours.” Harry heard Mrs Malfoy nattering on; she blinked curiously at Harry’s appalled gape. “Ah. A needless concern on my part, I see.”

“Oh, gods **_no_**. No, no, he’s been remarkably friendly--more than that,” Harry rushed to assure her. “A real trooper, Draco’s been, even with his wand malfunctioning and the stupid bond and everything.”

“Lovely.”

“And then too we’re not at daggers drawn very often anymore--and that does help matters. It’s been grand, not constantly being at each other’s throats.”

Mrs Malfoy hummed her approval, treating Harry to another brilliant smile. “That’s delightful to hear, Mr Potter. I was rather under the impression he found your company to be quite enjoyable. I admit I’ve been concerned for him.”

“You,” Harry swallowed hard and coughed into his hand, hoping to disguise his disconcertment. “You have?”

He should bloody well think Draco’s Mum should’ve been concerned! After all, Draco had been nearly forced to murder a whole slew of people, Dumbledore included! And then there’d been the fucking Cabinet, the ferocious Fiendfyre and then the actual blasted Battle!

Hadn’t everyone been bloody well ‘concerned’? Blasted Slytherins, with their bloody tendency to understate things!

“But of course, Mr. Potter.”

“Really.”

“Mmm, yes. You see, beyond suffering the utter disgrace engendered by that horrendous Riddle person invading our home, and the lack we Malfoys demonstrated in extricating ourselves from what was clearly a heinous association,” Mrs Malfoy continued, looking as though she’d smelt something foul and enunciating some very decided capitals through delicately clenched white teeth. “Beyond all that, my poor darling boy has not had an easy time of it lately. He’s been terribly lonely, I fear, what with some of his closest friends becoming entirely too caught up in the Dark Lord’s madness. That Crabbe boy.” The invisible smell must have worsened; Mrs Malfoy looked downright ill. “Such a bad influence!”  

“Uh-huh,” Harry murmured, completely fascinated by this unlooked-for turnabout on the part of a Witch he’d thought quintessentially cold-blooded and always out for the best advantage. The consummate Slytherin mother, really. “Do go on, Mrs Malfoy.”

“Of course I knew it was a strain on him, all this time, but particularly since that Incident with the Snatchers.” She paused. Harry saw her blanch as she glanced off and away, as if suddenly averse to meet his gaze directly. “For which--for which _I_ am sorry, Mr Potter. Had I known then what I know now, I’d’ve never allowed Lucius and Bellatrix to torment you all so--”

“No, no. It’s alright, Mrs Malfoy.” Harry grimaced, trying to catch her eye. He couldn't help but feel something akin to pity for her, even if she had been effectively just as much his enemy as her husband and sister had been. Her son, too, all those years. Until, of course, she _hadn’t_ \--and he’d lived to win the day. “Well, it’s not ‘alright’ of course; nothing is ever ‘alright’ about a war, is it? But I do understand what you’re saying, really. Your family means a great deal to you.”

“Do you now?” Mrs Malfoy asked sceptically, finally turning back to face Harry. “Because I myself, were I in your shoes, would find it nigh on impossible to forgive and forget the harm we’ve done you, we Malfoys. P’raps that’s why I must confess this newfound accord between you and my son astonishes me so, Mr Potter. Not that I am in any way ungrateful for it. In fact, I rather believe it might prove the true saving of my dearest Draco--having _your_ friendship to count upon in troubled times ahead. I know it is something he has always wished for.”

“Really?” Harry gaped till he remembered to put his jaw back firmly where it belonged. Then he rolled his eyes, disparagingly, because surely Mrs Malfoy had gone a bit mental. “But I thought he hated me, all those years. I mean, he certainly acted as though he did. My nose didn’t break itself, that one time, and I don't think he made those bloody Potter Stinks badges out of any burning desire to befriend me!”

“Nonsense, Mr Potter,” Mrs Malfoy hushed him. “You’re all he spoke of, all he thought of, for  the entirety of your time at Hogwarts. Indeed, I grew quite sick of the sound of your name, and it had nothing a’tall to do with the Death Eaters! Your Quidditch prowess and how you constantly flouted the Headmaster and all the Professors. How you went boldly about, doing whatever you pleased. He found it admirable, really, all that you and your young friends got up to, all your much-vaunted adventures with Trolls and Basilisks, the TriWizard and whatnot. Not that _I_ did, naturally, but I suppose I did find his admiration understandable, even then. Draco has always wished to be an adventurous sort, you know. He craves excitement. His fellow Slytherins simply couldn’t pass muster, not when compared to the famous Harry Potter!”

She began chuckling, which truly set Harry back on his heels. He felt breathless, his heart racing wildly of its own volition.  

“Well!” He slumped against the cushions. “That’s quite the shocker. I’d’ve never have known it, believe me. He had me quite convinced I was barely to be considered on par with a jar of rancid minced Flobberworms--at least to his mind. I quite thought he despised me.”

“Absolutely not,” Mrs Malfoy stated with conviction. “That’s just how some young people exhibit their admiration--by pulling pigtails, Mr Potter. Teasing a chap is often far safer than daring to smile at him.” Her look was both contemplative and rueful. “Young people being what they are, and especially as applied to my dear Draco. Lucius was ever after him not to admit to any sort of weakness, you see; it was below the dignity of a Malfoy. Fancying your rival Seeker might very well be considered a ‘weakness’, may it not?” she queried Harry archly, not waiting on his reply. “Perhaps he was never quite bold enough to overcome that, but still. He invested a rather monumental amount of time into engaging your attention, I’d say.”

“Argh.”

Up was Down and everything he’d thought of in relation to one Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts’ resident git and general nuisance, was suddenly arse-backwards and all akilter!

“Ahhhh...maybe?” He gulped, none too convinced. Mothers were weird sometimes, thinking people were going to get married just because they’d snogged a few times and shared a near-death experience. “Er, It might’ve been that way?”  

“It was, but enough reminiscing now, Mr Potter,” Mrs Malfoy said smartly, rising so that her dainty robes fell about her in elegant folds and turning toward the doorway. “Here is Draco now. Ready, darling? Don’t you look smart, dear. That shade does suit you. Go on with you now; you’ll be late.”

She glided off, leaving Harry stranded, staggered and mostly mentally a’sea, surrounded by gently wafting palm fronds and a pool of brightly illuminating morning sunlight. Feeling very much as though he’d been firmly placed on the off-foot, Harry scrambled up himself and rushed Draco, coming up upon him so abruptly as to nearly bowl him over.

“We need to go!” he informed Malfoy--poor, lonely, much oppressed Draco--harshly. “Immediately--we’re very, very late, terribly so. It’s rude of us; we need to go, please!”

He was all-out panicking, one part of his spinning head shrieked at him, even as he grabbed at Draco’s forearm and gripped it, and another, thankfully much saner section of his mind mentally prepared to Side-Along them both to the gates of Hogwarts. And it was fucking comforting, even reassuring, to see that familiar ironic eyebrow rising and those subtly-modulating grey eyes examining him as if he’d grown another head.

“What, what?” Draco frowned. “What’s wrong with you, Harry? Did Mother say something? You look strange.”

“Nothing--nothing!”

And that, Harry realized with an internal start and a terribly omniscient feeling of doom, was a particularly nasty, sly, unfunny quirk of a capricious Fate, that he who incited the riot was also directly responsible for the quiet which settled over Harry, like a bloody Elf-Charmed Good-night’s Sleep duvet over a squirmy, frantic, over-excited Firstie.

“Just. We need to go; we’re going,” he repeated, taking a deep breath and willing himself calm. It helped immensely to be attached to the arse who’d caused it; that was insane but also true. May as well fly with it, as Draco had said.  “Now, we’re going.” He tugged, his fingers so tight about Draco’s arm so hard he felt sure he’d leave bruises. “Goodbye, Mrs Malfoy; so nice to chat with you!”

“Harry?”

Harry had never been quite so grateful to see the gates of Hogwarts appearing out of the roiling misty dregs of Apparition as he was the next moment. He cried out, and let go of Draco, surging forward and away so to prop himself up against one of the pillars, his knees feeling well wonky beneath him.

“We’re here; let’s go,” he mumbled weakly, gripping the ancient stone in slippery fingers.

“One bloody moment. What,” Draco demanded, dusting himself off and striding over with a determined glower, “in the flying fuck was that all about, Potter?”

“I...it was nothing, nothing at all,” Harry offered, waving him off. Or attempting to, anyway. Which didn't stop Draco from seizing him by the shoulders and turning him about bodily so that they ended up face-to-face. “Nothing happened; why do you ask? Can we go in now?”  

“Do not fucking lie to me, Harry.”

“But--”

“Do. Not.” Draco gave him the tiniest little shake. “If you want this to work, this thing we have.” He let go of a shoulder to flap a hand, the gesture intimating momentous, unspoken volumes concerning the ‘thing’, all of which Harry had the horrible dismaying feeling he actually _understood_. “You will not lie to me. And.” He inhaled mightily, flaring his aristocratic nostrils and bearing down over Harry with steely determination. “Neither will I. Lie. To you. But only if _you_ don’t. Understand, Potter?”   

Harry stared up at Draco. He was, Harry thought, still the pain in the arse he’d always been. He was also good company. He was...grimly attractive and very much shaggable, and Harry hadn't really thought about shagging anyone in a long, long time. Now it was all he thought of...when he wasn’t thinking about how he rather liked Draco. As a person.  

“Ah.”

“Potter. _Harry_.”

Harry shrugged. There was the fatalist part of him, the part who had no issue with saying 'oops, sorry!' later. He was a bloody Gryffindor and as much addicted to the Fool’s Rush as any of them. He was certainly thinking about shagging now. Thanks to Mrs Malfoy, but yet...So, yes. Why ever the fuck not?

“Okay.”

“...Okay?” Draco’s eyes widened. “Just ‘okay’? No arguments, no excuses? The ‘I’m fine with it’ sort of ‘okay’, Harry? Or the ‘I’m going to lie to you about not lying to you and then lie to you later as convenient’ sort of ‘okay’?”

“What?”

Draco shook his blond mane impatiently. “Look, just say yes or no, alright?”

“Yes,” Harry said decisively, ducking out from under Draco’s grip with a lovely little dodge-and-twist maneuver he’d used to employ once upon a time in Quidditch. “Now, shut it.” His lip curled; no doubt Draco would remember that move. “And you may thank your mother for me agreeing to anything at all, Malfoy, but now, right this bloody instant, may we please, please go inside? McGonagall's likely having Kneazles by now; I promised her no later than eleven and it’s quarter past.”

“Fine,” Draco snapped, snaking his arm through Harry’s and whisking them both onto the grounds of Hogwarts proper. “But I’m only trusting you on this because my wand does. Merlin save us all.”


	6. June 10th, 1998

“The sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light. Harry was an indispensable part of the mingled outpourings of jubilation and mourning, of grief and celebration. They wanted him there with them, their leader and their symbol, their savior and their guide, and that he had not slept, that he craved the company of only a few of them, seemed to occur to no one.”

The Final Battle, May 2, 1998.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

  
  


**June 10th, 1998**

 

“Fuuuuuck!” 

Why was this particularly English June so unbearably fair? And so unrelenting about it, what with the sunbeams a’beaming and the refractions off nearly every surface? Why were there no kindly clouds, obscuring the orb that dazzled Harry’s already blurry vision and caused his head to throb so painfully? 

And why was he tucked into a strange bed with Draco Malfoy at the Hog’s Head, when last he recalled they’d every intention of returning to their separate residences and calling it a night well before last call, like two actual adults? 

Fuck. Well, clearly they’d failed that part.  

Harry winced and rolled over, catching sight of their two wands, one of which had clearly rearranged itself overnight and materialized next to the other. Groaning, he then managed to lever his aching body in the other direction, only to bump into the lanky form of one thankfully not-snoring Slytherin, sprawled over the majority of the mattress and in possession of mostly all of the duvet. Not that Harry required the duvet; he was fully clothed, robes, shoes, specs, belt and all, and feeling worse because of it. 

As was, Harry noted in a haze of bleary hungover disappointment, Draco. Draco, who was less than impeccable for once and drooling quietly all over the mound of pillows he’d hogged. Both of them definitely worse for wear; the question remaining: how did it come about?

With a muzzy determination, Harry stuck out a wavering forefinger and poked the white-mopped lump next to him. 

“Draco. Draco, Draco, Draco. Draco!” 

“Shhhhaaaad-it,” the lump muttered, shifting and jerking in an effort to avoid Harry’s persistent poking finger. “G’way.” 

“No.” Harry tried bunching his fingers together directly under Draco’s armpit in a primitive sort of tickling motion. “No, no, no, Draco, Draco, Draco. Wake up, you prick. M’not stopping till you wake up.” 

One eye popped open. It was red-veined and full of hatred. 

“Fuck. Off. P’o’er.”  That said, Draco’s eyelid fell instantly shut as he smoothly rolled away, presenting his back to Harry. “Lemme shleep.” 

Harry ceased, mostly because he’d not known anyone could actually manage to slur the syllables of ‘Potter’. Also because Draco was so encased with the swaddling duvet, he wasn’t effectively reaching any sensitive areas. The armpit had been a lucky break, really. 

“Fine, fuck you,” he informed the recalcitrant duvet, “but I’m going now.” 

The duvet grunted. Harry, taking that as a definite brush off, made a supreme effort and managed to maneuver himself off the squishy mattress, through the dusty hangings and onto the floor, all in one completely floppy uncoordinated motion. 

“Fuuuuck! I hate you,” he yelped, mostly to himself. Since clearly no one else was awake enough to care about his suffering. “Lots.” 

Harry knew he would likely feel the bruises on his knees later, when he was finally returned to the welcoming murk of Grimmauld, gargling Hangover Potion and cursing the ever-living fuck out of the idea of playing drinking games with devious elderly Scotswomen.

“I hate MacGongagargle too,” he advised the various furniture legs and scurrying dust bunnies as he crawled gamely past them, his erratic forward wobble aimed at conveying his tortured body to the sanctity of the loo before it sicked up all that alcohol and his life completely went to shite. “Gahhhh!”

It took him what seemed like forever but he did succeed.   

“Not so fast, Potter.” 

Harry, having gingerly gained his actual feet, whipped out his dick and positioned himself over the toilet, jumped, his still-squirting knob bobbing. 

“Wh-what?” He staggered round to stare at Draco, who’d appeared at the doorway to the lavatory and was lounging against it with far more  _ savoir faire _ than any man wrapped solely in a lumpy duvet over yesterday’s robes ought to ever exhibit. 

“You heard me.” 

“You--you’re naked!” Harry squawked, momentarily forgetting that he, too, wasn't exactly tidy. Because Draco was manifestly no longer clad in yesterday's robes and there was skin to be seen. Pale, fine skin. Fantastic amounts of it. “Gahhh! Why’re you naked?”  

“I’ve noticed,” Draco drawled, idly adjusting the duvet where it slipped down one bare shoulder. “So are you, in a manner of speaking. Nice dick, Harry. Is it saying hullo to me?” 

“I’m  **_pissing_ ** !” 

“I see that.” Draco’s expression of mild amusement didn’t change a whit as he eyed up Harry’s half-erect willy. “And I’m for a shower. Are you done here?” 

“No!” Harry, aghast, peremptorily stuffed his penis bank into his pants. He scrambled to take on the onerous task of belting and buttoning up whilst simultaneously hopping across the cold slippery tile to the sink, trousers half-binding his bruised knees, his intention being to off himself by drowning under the taps. “Ow!”

“Alright there?” 

Harry scowled, grunting. He wisely didn't trust himself in the actual shower; that could really hurt. Draco chuckling at the doorway wasn’t helping one iota. 

“Get out, Malfoy!” he ordered feebly. 

The room was not-helpfully spinning like bloody top. Darkness, the final one, Harry feared, was fast encroaching.  He was doomed to expire cheesily in a second-rate pub room under the minatory eye of a starkers Malfoy. 

“Just...just leave me to die in peace!” 

“Oh, no, not on my watch, Harry.” 

Draco was in the room with a hand slipped under Harry’s elbow before he could say ‘Boo!’ to anything with feathers--including Draco’s duvet, which was falling like all fabled seven of those Veils off that one Muggle lady Harry had heard mentioned. 

“There’s likely no Hangover Potions to be had here, is there? And silly me only had the one vial.” 

“No,” Harry moaned, giving up any thought of fighting off Draco and accepting his help to reach the basin. “No, there is not.” He slumped, gratefully laying his wan cheek on the rim. Even his stubble hurt, Harry noticed; it was that sort of morning.  “But if you fetch your wand, you can AK me,” he suggested hopefully. “That’ll do just as well.” 

“No, you Merlin forsaken idiot,” Draco said firmly, hovering over Harry like some great bedding-clad angel of mercy. “I’m turning on the water now. Wash your face and rinse your mouth at least, will you? I’ll nip out and grab some more potion after I shower. You, however, may go back to the bed and stay there for a while longer. You’re clearly not fit to be even breathing around others. You reek.”

“...M’not an idiot,” Harry protested eventually, having allowed himself to be splashed, mopped up and herded back to the communal bed. “Can’t help it if McGonagall's sneaky, can I? And Flitwick--wait, wasn't Flitwick there too? I swear he was there.”

“You’re a fine mess, aren’t you? Thank Salazar Slytherins actually know how to hold their liquor.” 

Snickering under his breath, Draco finished tossing the duvet over Harry and stepped back, regarding him calmly. “Well, was he?” Harry pressed, peevish and already fading fast. Despite the utter glory of a fully nude Draco Malfoy before him. His cock twitched limply the once and subsided. “Oh god, please kill me?”  

“I’m not killing you, git-for-brains. He was, yes. And I think he fucking well conned me into yet more specialized Restoration work but it’s all a bit hazy. Everything’s hazy, really--I do believe McGonagall wanted it that way, really, the wily old--er!” 

He stopped at Harry’s enraged squint and abortive surge upright in bed. 

“Sorry, sorry, I know she’s sacred. Still, you stay there, Potter. Have a kip or something; you look like something my mother's Kneazle regurgitated. I’ll be back and deal with you a little later, alright? I need hot water pouring all over my poor abused body in order to properly function and I need it now.”

“...A’righ’...” Too knackered to argue further, or even to expend the effort to keep his achy eyes open, Harry did as he was told and fell back into a heavy doze. “N’g’way.”

“I am.” Draco laughed. “Idiot.” 

Now and again, Harry caught fleeting impressions of life continuing on all around his mostly oblivious body: the loo door opening and closing, wafts of soapy steam pouring out; Draco Scourgifying his yesterday’s clothes with a decided disgruntled sniff; an Inn Elf calling at the room door with a tray of something that smelt remarkably like coffee. But none of that was enough to rouse him and it wasn't until some indeterminate time later that he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him fully awake. 

“G’way…” Sullen and still very much hungover, Harry resisted, growling into the pillow he’d been drooling on. “Grrr’off!” 

“Harry. Harry?” Draco heaved a huffing sigh and sat next to Harry’s prone body on the bed. “Potter, did you die again whilst I wasn't looking? Come on, up you get. I’ve brought your Potion for you and tea. Lovely tea, just as you like it.” 

“Don’t wanna.” 

“Yes, you do,” Draco insisted. “It’s half one and our new employer’s sent us a Howler.” 

“What? What on earth, Draco?” Harry struggled to his elbows, his hair tumbling into his eyes. “What new employer? Whyever a Howler--from whom?” 

“McGonagall is who. A Howler because she weazled us into creating a very persnickety variation on the Pensieve Charm last night as a favour to her before the Memorial. I’ve remembered it all, more’s the pity. Now, drink this, lie back for a moment and shut your gob. You’ve no time for bathing and such; I need make you presentable.” 

“Vir bonus vultus. Et bene sanus.” Before Harry could object--not that he necessarily would’ve, mind--Draco was frowning down at him and making a serious of arcane hand gestures in his general direction, all the while muttering softly under his breath. “Refresco, that’s it. Now--Scourgify omnino. Hmm, good; you’ll do.” He sat back and surveyed his handiwork with a critical eye. “Hmm, feeling the thing yet, Harry? You should.” 

“Actually,” Harry replied after a long moment recovering to the curious  feeling of being embraced and immersed in someone else's Magic, “I do!” 

“Get this down you, then,” Draco reminded, handing over Harry’s tea. “It’s not exactly a hot bath and change of robes, but you’ll do. I’ll just change out the colour of your jumper--oh, and clean your teeth again. Open your mouth, will you?” 

“Err---rrroop!” Harry gargled and gasped. He felt himself flailing amidst the sensation of minty freshness while Draco rousted him fully off the bed and had to clutch at the managing git for balance. “Bleurgh.”

“Easy there, Harry.” 

A swish of Draco’s hand had his jumper a lovely malachite green and his entire body felt rather tingly in a staticky way. Harry achieved full upright on his own pins and noticed happily his knees were in perfect working order. “Er, wait?” 

“Yes?”  Draco was already at the door; he cast a frown behind him as he threw on an elegant short robe, suitable for traipsing about the hallowed halls of Hogwarts. Harry blinked. He clearly remembered that same robe being a tad longer and mostly definitely a shade of burgundy-wine just yesterday.  Now it was navy-blue, with silvery piping. “Keep moving. You can jabber at me whilst we’re going.” 

“Um. Why’re you being so nice to me?” Harry frowned and drew level. “I mean, I know we’re wand mates or whatever Ollivander calls it, but...well. I know we’ve been legless together any number of times now, but? We still have a sort of history. Right?” 

“Yes?”

“It’s only.” He allowed Draco to take his arm for a Side-Along. "I find it a little hard to swallow, you wanting to go so far as to take care of me when I’m--” He shrugged, stumbling against Draco when they landed neatly outside the gates. “Fuck, watch yourself! You know. Wretched.”

Draco snorted, righting the both of them and incidentally neatening Harry’s tie. 

“Hah! You were leagues more than merely ‘wretched’, Potter! Decomposing where you were laying, maybe.” 

“Yes, but--”

“I’m being practical, Potter.” Draco subjected him to a long sideways stare. “And taking good care of mine own. It’s what Slytherins do, you know, when we’re not occupied with all our never-random gossip, our mass hysteria, our mocking of each other and everyone else--or simply just tormenting a few ill-kempt, ill-natured Gryffindors for some good, clean fun.” 

“You’re a git,” Harry replied, trotting along to keep up with his companion’s longer strides. “And a liar besides. Neville told me you didn’t so much as throw a single Jinx at anyone these last few months--not even your hated Gryffindors! Very quiet you were, almost as it you didn't want to be there.” 

“I didn't.” Draco's voice was soft, for they were nearing the Headmistresses’ quarters, having made excellent progress. “I’d let them all in, hadn’t I? I never wanted to go back, Harry.” Much of the rubble had already been cleared away. “But I wanted to be at the Manor even less, so…”

“Well then, why--oh, bollocks. We’re here already.” 

“So we are.” Draco turned in his heel and tilted his head, looking down his nose at Harry, evidently sizing him up for meeting with a Headmistress McGonagall in a suspected high-dudgeon. “Right, I suppose you’ll do. But! Let  _ me _ do the talking this time, Potter. I’ve a plan, you see, to minimize our damage. A much better one than anything your potted brain could manage, I’m sure.”  

 


	7. June 11th, 1998

“‘ _But you’re too late,_ ’ said Harry. ‘ _You’ve missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him_.’”        

Confronting Voldemort over the Elder Wand, May 2, 1998.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , by J.K. Rowling

 

**June 11th, 1998**

 

“Fuck, Potter, what _ever_ are you doing down here at this time of night?”

“This.”

Harry glared at the ruffled, clearly just-rousted-rudely-out-of-bed ponce all decked out in fucking lilac silk pajamas. They were different yet again from the set he’d seen previously and for some reason that irked him straight to high hell.

“Is not _my_ wand, Malfoy," he continued, through clenched teeth. "It is _your_ fucking wand, the _same_ fucking wand I have been returning to you every _single_ fucking morning for a bloody week now! I want my _own_ bloody wand back right now, fuck you very much.”

“What? What are you even saying, Harry? Why are you throwing a wobbly?” Draco reached out to him, huffing. “Oh, never mind that now; we can’t talk here.” He helped himself to Harry’s waist and swiftly Apparated them both out of the familiar bounds of the Malfoy wine cellar, saying “Come along, you bloody knob.”

“Me?!" Harry howled, all through it. "You’re the one who’s left me without a place to sleep!”

The dizzying spin of Side-Along did absolutely nothing to defuse Harry’s mood. He stumbled into a room choc’o’block with themes of green-and-silver and practically hissing with serpentine accents. And all manner of playthings, most of them to do with dragons, Quidditch and snakes.

“Where in the bleeding hell are we now?” he demanded, peevishly shaking off the hand at his elbow and staring aghast at all the childish green-and-silver decor. “This doesn’t look like your bedroom; this looks like Slytherin kindergarten!”

“My old room, from childhood,” Draco shrugged offhandedly, sweeping his fringe off his brow. He pursed his lips. “As Mrs Longbottom is occupying the Master suite. It’s a damned good thing you didn't try to Floo into there at fecking three o’clock in the morning, Potter; she’d have had your bollocks for a change purse.”

“Oh, right! That.”

Diverted from his intention to tease Draco mercilessly over the baby-dragons-on-broomsticks wallpaper, Harry growled, stomping a slippered foot on the plush green-and-silver carpet.

“Why the _fuck_ do you think I ended up in your wine cellar again? That Floo’s blocked off. I had to use the bloody Elf door--even your main Floo was shut! Which reminds me,” he ranted, temper bubbling fiercely away at a parboil and brandishing the wand that was _not_ his wand in Draco’s unimpressed face. “I have no place to sleep, thanks to you and your fucking brilliant ideas! My house is brim-full of Weasleys, Malfoy, and the sofa in my study is a billion years ancient and lumpy! You and your bloody ‘I have a plan, Potter’! Fuck right off next time, will you?”

“Huh,” Draco lifted a careless shoulder. His royal purple silk paisley robe slipped elegantly. Harry squinted nastily at him; determined not to be distracted yet again. Silk apparently _clung_. “Well, sometimes these things work out a little differently  than we expect, don't they?” Mostly Harry felt he was succeeding in the not-looking, given the boost brought on by raging insomnia that kept his temper high and his eyes focussed. “There’s no need to be so shirty about it,” he sniffed.

“Tosser!”

“Anyway,” Draco went on determinedly, inexorably ushering Harry further into his room, “a lumpy sofa is nothing on having the Honourable Dame Augusta Longbottom roaming the halls of one’s Manor and turning up her nose at one's family portraits, Potter. At least _your_ Weasleys don’t actively despise _you_ \--and every single one of your antecedents, apparently. Even the ones she’s blood-related to! My poor great-great Auntie Thermopylae will never recover, I fear.”

“Fuck your great-great Auntie Therma-what’s it. _My_ Weasley’s, thank you very fucking much,” Harry  snarled, unappeased, squaring his chin and mentally rolling up his sleeves to fight the good fight over who was more maligned by evil circumstance, “are kind, polite, good-natured people--there are just a metric tonne of them, alright? And it’s not like you don’t have acres of guest rooms at your disposal, Draco! You could house the entire fucking Ministry in here!”

“On the contrary,” Draco grinned. “Three-quarters of the guest rooms are still not cleared by the Aurors and the entire North Wing is cordoned off. Besides, the Right Honourable Mrs Longbottom is a highly formidable old bat and she quite makes up in nasty, contrary, ill-tempered-old-lady attitude for what she lacks in bulk and mass, Harry. There’s enough prideful righteousness contained in her to occupy the entire East Wing, I wager. Certainly _I_ don’t want to spend time there when she’s in it.”

“Bully for you, Malfoy,” Harry cut in, unimpressed. “I have grieving Weasleys scattered all over my house. _And_   Mr Potage, because someone nastily burnt down his cauldron shop!  Kreacher can barely keep us in clean handkerchieves.”

“Indeed.” Draco tsked, nodding his--probably false?--sympathy. “Oh, that’s too bad, _Harry_ , but there’s also Lovegood, Mr Lovegood _and_ Mr Ollivander inhabiting my Manor. It’s quite the old home week here, what with every Elf hand on deck trying to properly entertain our former prisoners and not send them screaming off in terror! Thank Merlin Mother’s already decamped to Auntie Andromeda’s. She’s sent you her best regards, by the way. And young Teddy is well.”

“Whatever!” Harry threw up his hands, once again catching sight of the item that had finally sent him over the edge at fuck-all o’clock in the a.m. “Take _your_ blasted wand back, alright? And give me _mine_ \-- _and_ a place to sleep while you're at it! I know you must have a better sofa I can kip on somewhere; this is a fucking monstrosity of a house! You own a gazillion sitting thingies; I’ve seen them!”

“Oh, Harry,” Draco drawled unabashed, advancing step by step towards Harry. “I’m so terribly sorry I've upset you so--I’ve been blind to your real purpose all along, haven’t I?”

His motion forced Harry to furtively scuttle backwards. And then sideways, because of the stupid stuffed creatures over-spilling Draco’s old toy trunk and piled up all over the floor.

“I should have realized, my love,” Draco cooed sweetly, as if butter wouldn’t melt. “You sly scoundrel; who knew you were such a romantic fool--for love?”

“What?” Harry yelped, coming up spine-to-Draco’s carven wooden bedpost rather suddenly.  It pinched; he lurched sideways and stopped in his tracks, for he was effectively cornered. “What, what? Who said anything about ‘love’? What d’you even mean, ‘ _my_ plan’, Malfoy? Are you off your bloody nut?”

“Hardly. I’ve never been more clear-headed. And so you might share my bed again, is what,” Draco smirked, calmly divesting Harry of the wand--his wand. It disappeared somewhere but Harry barely noticed any of that particular sleight-of-hand, what with being enveloped by the scent of posh warm male body and assaulted by a very brilliant, quite insouciant smile. A knowing smile. "Obviously."

The sort Harry would’ve punched instantly, once upon a time. Oddly, it produced quite the opposite reaction in Harry, this time ‘round.

He gurgled faintly, staring wide-eyed up at Draco, caught by something rather dangerous and carnally appealing lurking behind the amused glitter in those translucent eyes.

“So as to make,” Draco went on as if it were a given, the natural order of things, what he was suggesting, “our wand bond the _real thing_. Isn’t that right, Harry? I rather think it is.”

“!!--- _???_ \--- **!!!** ”

Words failed Harry. Completely. Certainly the strangled sounds emerging from his open mouth didn't resemble words, though they did convey his shocked bemusement. 

“I thought so.” Draco cocked his chin, regarding Harry’s gawp-and-flail with pleasure. “Just admit it.”

“What? No!”

“It would be,” Draco purred, undeterred and gliding ever closer, looming ever nearer, so much so that Harry was forced to crane his neck to keep a wary eye on him and clutch at the bedpost.

“...Be what?” he managed. "What would it be?" 

“Ever so very convenient, would it not? For McGonagall and for Hogwarts and for finally laying to rest this ridiculous notion that Slytherins are the bane of Wizarding existence. Wouldn't it now, Saviour Boy, our Hero? So many garden gnomes, all with the one singular toss.”

“You--you’re joking!” Harry left go of the bedpost and clutched his head, in an effort to screw it back on properly. It clearly wasn't functioning properly--and certainly his ears had failed him. Seeing as all they seemed to be hearing from Draco was a stonking great heap of rubbish! “What--what are you on about now? I’m meant to shag you to save Hogwarts and Slytherin House? You loon!”

Harry stuck out his hand and pressed it against Draco’s chest, the vague thought of giving the git a good hard shove and bowling him right over flickering through his befuddlement. He nipped that off right quick, because absolutely no one would be happy with them if they showed up with blackened eyes and bloodied noses at Hogwarts in the morning. Besides, Harry thought, he didn't want to row with Draco. He only wanted to understand what new Slytherinesque scheme was running through his all too fit head.

"Not at all," Draco replied, smiling down at the hand.   

“That’s so--so totally insane, Draco,” Harry stated, as calmly and rationally as he was able. “Outrageous. You cannot be serious! You must be pissed again.”

“No. _Not_ what I said. What I said, Harry,” Draco replied, smoothly covering up Harry’s splayed fingers with his own long ones and gripping Harry's elbow with his other, a twist of his hips against Harry’s somehow subtly shifting them both from his last stand at the bedpost. “Is that it’s Fate, really, and we may as well give into it, right? The Wand chooses the Wizard.”

“Yes? We knew that?” Harry frowned, trying to keep his footing. "And how did we know that, Draco, exactly?" 

“Well? Can you not see it?” Draco looked expectant. “Is not your wand here, now, in my possession at last? Because I know that it is...and I think you know full well what _that_ means, Harry. Don’t be obtuse.”

“The Wand chooses…Oh!” Harry murmured. “Oh, Merlin. _My_ wand, in _your_ hands? Like”--Harry blinked fast, sorting it all out, something he hadn’t done a little earlier, when he’d been desperately trying to Transfigure his stupid sofa into a bed and failing, repeatedly. “Like _that_ , then. Well, bugger.”

“Yes, _that_ , exactly. Best, then,” Draco nodded, looking relieved and suddenly knocking Harry completely off balance with a swift ankle hook to the back of the knee. They gained enough to momentum to send them plummeting down onto the mussed bedclothes with a soft thump and a flurry of scattering pillows. “To be getting on with the shagging, for all concerned. Don’t you agree?”

“Oof!”

Draco batted his eyelashes at Harry, who’d somehow ended up beneath him.

“Sorry," he said, settling down and making himself comfortable. "But, of course you do; why else would you be here, so late at night--and bringing me my wand back?”

“Agree!!” Harry squawked, twitching and wild-eyed at the assumption. He told himself he wasn’t resisting--much--because he was so knackered. “Who said I agree? Are you run mad, Malfoy? No, wait. You _are_ mad, I know that. Only barking mad people blithely invite people into _other people’s houses_ , without so much as a ‘by-your-leave, Harry’? Right? Right!”

“Oh, that.”

"Yes, that."

Draco had the grace to look slightly apologetic. But only slightly. And his hands weren’t apologetic at all as they roamed about Harry’s person, quite unchecked. Again, Harry thought about the effort involved in struggling against where Draco had him pinned, but it was actually very late indeed, so late it was early, and there was a large part of Harry which was involved solely in relishing the feel of a fucking fit chap wearing silk joggers pressed up firm and indisputably hard against his own rather touch-starved person.

“That was mostly McGonagall's fault; she tricked me into it." Draco shrugged. "Are you quite certain she’s actually a Gryffindor, Harry? I have my doubts.”

“Of course she’s a Gryffindor and you! You know that’s a load of bollocks, is what!” Harry drew a deep breath and ranted on, drawing upon his Gryffindor obstinacy. He was not going down without at least a show of rattling sabres. “I had no romantic plans coming here, believe me--I just came here to return your damned wand and get my own back, Malfoy. It has nothing to do with Fate! Or Hogwarts! Or shagging to save Slytherin! Or anything else your demon barmy brain can summon!”

“S’not just me, Harry,” Draco murmured, adjusting his weight and ignoring Harry’s instinctive squirming. “I’m not mistaken in this.” His smirking lips came to rest teasingly against Harry’s flexing jawline, teasing the hint of dark stubble. “It’s you as well; don’t you dare deny it.  Coming to me, barely dressed, late at night, claiming you just _had_ to? You were compelled? Huh!”

Harry snorted, rolling his eyes in derision. “Lies! I did have to come, I tell you--I needed a place to sleep!”  

“Oh, no, no. That won’t fly.” He waggled those arrogant blond eyebrows at Harry’s outrage. “Pull the other; it's got bells on.” He nipped Harry’s one earlobe, snickering softly at Harry's scowl. “Let's see. You could’ve asked Kreacher for help. You could have asked one of the Weasleys, for that matter. Indeed, you could have sensibly waited till proper morning to make the exchange after you got bounced back twice in a row on the Floos. _You didn’t_. I rest my case, Harry. You came here specifically to see me, and to make use of my bed--ergo, to shag me.”  

“Merlin, but you do go on, don't you?" Harry growled, accidentally turning his head, just sufficient that the lips idly caressing his three a.m. stubble landed square on Harry’s own mouth. “What the fuck arghh--are, ahem, you even _doing_? Mmmph! Oh!”

“You didn’t have to, Harry,” Draco breathed, biting down ever so gently upon Harry’s lower lip and then licking it, “but I’m damned glad you did. Oh--I’m helping you adjust, love.”

"'Adjust', huh?" Harry blinked, digesting that gem. “Oh, fucking Merlin, Draco, you're barking, I swear.”

Honestly, Harry thought, most erratically and in sudden scattered collection of mental bit-and-pieces, he was _too_. Glad, that is. Oh, so much so!

“Don’t swear at your wand mate, Harry; it’s rude,” Draco muttered, nosing though Harry’s hair. “Stop blathering and snog me back. Please?”  

“...Fuck, you said,” Harry groaned. Well, that tore it, right there, Draco saying ‘please’, just in that way. Harry _had_ to, didn’t he? He _did_. “Oh fuuuuck, Draco.”

“Hmmm, yes, please,” Draco said promptly. “ _Do._ ”  

They both ceased talking, but were by no means silent: Harry moaned, Draco groaned, the bed clothes rustled and the plush, plump mattress wallowed beneath them like a sloop on the wild, wild seas.

The seas in a tempest, mind! For there was something quite, quite lightning-bolt-electric about being lip-to-lip and tongue-to-tongue with Draco Malfoy. Harry’s entire body literally went full-charge on a bloody cellular level at just the barest touch of that intriguing mouth against his own--not to mention the raging stiffies both of them sported, rubbing along in fricative fashion and sufficient to drive the sanest, most sober Wizard screaming into the beckoning arms of Desire. And it only got hotter and harder and faster as they went on, just like being swirled about in a bubbling cauldron of Amortmentia.

“Ohgawds, ohgawds, ohgawds,” Harry chanted, when he could catch a breath, which was seldom. “I want you, I want...oh, please?”

“Sweet Circe, Harry, oh yes, you’re so--and your arse, it’s--oh, yes, like that, but more, please!”

It was the panted out ‘Pleases’, the whispered half-words of appreciation and satisfaction, mixed. The _“I want--!”_ and the:

“I need--!”

“Oh... **oh**!”

“Yes, that--there, right there!”

“Get--get your hand back--on--me!”

“Y- **Yes**!

It was like dueling-with-dicks, wrangling wanks, a giant sensory overload of the best sort imaginable ever: hot skin, fragrant damp, Draco panting, Harry keening, a stupid amount of tongue and mindless groping and moistness and saliva, grinding of pelvises and twining of limbs, finally collapsing into an exchange of frantic mutual dick-gripping, and culminating in the best thing ever: a completely uncoordinated, but still momentously satisfying, imperfectly-but-yet-blindingly- _perfect_ matched set of nearly simultaneous orgasms.

“ _Aughhh_!”

“Ahhhhh…scrummy,” Draco sighed, replete, twitching like he’d been Hexed silly and sagging all over Harry, nearly smothering them both in the Slytherin-hued duvet he yanked over their heads. He immediately fought it off by batting at it, his Wandless ability having apparently deserted him in his post-euphoria. “That...was...brilliant. Bloody...duvet!”

“Ooooh, yeeessss,” Harry hissed, stretching, yawning widely and unknowingly helping his lover successfully fend off the green monster. “It was, yeah.” Apparently both he and Draco had been primed to go off for ages. Possibly years, even. “So, so bloody brilliant. I’ve never, well...not like _that_.”

“M'neither. S’cause we’re meant, Har’ree.” Draco blindly nosed his way through Harry’s rumpled hair, clearly fading away. “Wand chooses, and all that. Makes it smashing.”

"Mmmm, that." Harry began to doze off, exhausted. 

It was peaceful, and mostly quiet, Harry ruminating as his mind swam about in that so-familiar fog that always came up before true sleep. Until he stirred, turning his head to slit his eyes open and gaze at the dimly lit features of his shiny-bright, brand-new lover. Who, he sincerely hoped, wasn’t just another bloody dream. Worried, he poked it.

“Er? Tell me we did just….Merlin, Draco, we really did do, didn’t we?" The body by him stirred, mumbling inarticulately. Harry poked it again, harder. "Draco? It happened? I’m not asleep? Oh, sorry--were you asleep?”  

“H’mmm, no, not anymore." The grey eyes popped open, glinting silver in the dimly it room. "And yes, we did, and it was spiffing, wasn’t it?” Draco sighed, languorously kissing his way around Harry’s dampened, flushed neck and shoulders. “A tad speedy for my exact taste, mind you, but we can work on that, I’m sure. Why aren’t you asleep, Harry? You alright?”

"Mmmm, yeah." Harry stretched, yawning, but carefully, as he didn’t want Draco leaving go of him. It felt brilliant, having the whole of his bare skin touching Draco’s, feeling their spent pricks bumbling ‘round together beneath the sheet. At some point, Harry thought, Draco must’ve Vanished his dressing gown and joggers. Along with all the rest of their clothes. “I...think so?” he ventured, rather enjoying the smattering of tiny kisses. They were light as feathers and didn’t tickle unduly. “Don’t mistake me--I really liked it, but.”

“But what?” Draco prodded, concern evident in his voice. “What’s wrong, Harry?”  

“No, no, nothing like that! But,” Harry went on slowly, still putting pieces together. “I suppose I just wasn't expecting--I hadn't really thought it through. Not like _you_ have, Draco.”

“‘Course I have,” Draco scoffed, but not in a cruel way. More of a friendly tease. “My wand choose you, remember? Mr Ollivander said. Took you long enough to realize it wasn’t all one-sided, you idiot. I swear you’re the densest Gryffindor ever to exist, Potter. Talk about oblivious.”

“Fuck you,” Harry muttered with not a whit of rancour. “You’re as bad as Hermione, all oblique and acting as if I should know something she’s not told me! And how was I to understand exactly what Ollivander meant? I mean, I was raised Muggle, Malfoy. Remember?”

“Yes, and you also attended Flitwick’s classes, Harry,” Draco chided, trailing a hand down Harry’s side just firmly enough not to annoy. "At least until you and your mates did a bunk." He gave Harry’s bum cheek a fond squeeze. “In which he did teach us the various sorts of bonding charms, for good or ill, despite what Mr Ollivander had to say about the curriculum. You know they existed; why the surprise?”

“M’not surprised,” Harry retorted, eyes searching for his own wand. “I just hadn’t really...oh! Speaking of, where is…?” He located it quite quickly--right atop the ornately painted table next to Draco’s bed. “Bugger. Of course it is.”

“It’s been right there all the entire evening, Harry,” Draco observed smugly. “Appeared right when I went to bed. Which was dreadfully early, but I rather had to.”

“Yeah?”

Draco hummed, his eyes glittering as he wordlessly, Wandlessly dimmed the sconces down to their lowest light, drawing the bed curtains fully closed as he did so.

“I do believe Longbottom and Lovegood are shagging, Harry.” He tucked Harry up into his long arms as he was talking, so they were just as they’d been arranged at the Inn, neatly spooned. “They were certainly making some serious shag-me-silly eyes at one another over supper. Lovegood had this ice lolly after, for pudding? A raspberry-cream one, too. She’d asked for it and of course you know I’d do nearly anything to oblige her. But poor old Longbottom, all red-faced and huffing, barely able to sit, and he with his monstrously ill-humoured relative present! After that, I was forced to retreat to bed early; self-defense, right?”

“Really? Nev and Luna.” Curious, Harry rolled over, facing Draco. He looked at the soft smile on his face and delighted in it. No rancour, no cruelty, not even a hint of superiority blemished his pale face. He smiled back, chuffed. “I didn't realize they were interested in one another at all. That’s odd.”

“Not so much.” Draco shook his head, smoothing down Harry’s wayward hair, digging his fingertips in to rub at his scalp, smiling in faint bemusement when it resisted. “Silly stuff you have on your head, Harry. But no. Don't think they are, really. Think it’s just nerves. We all nearly died, Harry-- _you_ did, in fact, and don't _dare_ try that again or _I’ll_ be the one AK’ing _you_ \--and it’s rather natural to want to shag one’s brains out after a near-death experience. Don't you think? I know I’ve been wanting to shag you stupid for a while now. Even before I knew what shagging was, really. Very nasty feeling, that. Think I may have hated you just for that for a quite a long while there.”

“Mmm, sorry...but I suppose you’re right,” Harry agreed sleepily. “And thanks for that information; very flattering, Malfoy. Ick. We were, what? Twelve?” His eyelids were heavy and gaining weight by the moment. He was warm, and the mattress was exquisitely comfortable, better even than his bed back at Grimmauld, currently occupied by Mr and Mrs Weasley. And Draco was...well, Draco was?

“Oh, you’re welcome. It’s only the truth.”

What _was_ he, to Harry?

“I mean, they’re not the same as us, Harry,” Draco was still chattering on, was what. “Fated and Wand-Chosen and all that romantic rot Mr Ollivander was spouting. It’ll probably blow over in a few days, likely. The thought that _really_ bothers me is, what if their elders are _also_ shagging? Xenophilius and the august Augusta? Ewwww! My skin crawls!”

“Pardon? All what ‘romantic rot’, Malfoy?” Harry’s eyes popped right open, only to narrow instantly into a killing glare. He wrenched himself backwards, trying to put some space between them. “What’s that about? Are you just pretending you like me, Draco Malfoy? Is this all just because of what Mr Ollivander said? Because if it is, it’s fucking well off, all of it--the shagging, the bond, the whatever! I’m not about to live my life according to yet another bloody prophesy or--or whatever this Merlin-forsaken wand bond is supposed to be! I’m not, d’you hear!?”

“Oh, for the sake of Salazar, Harry, will you just take a Chill Potion?” Draco exclaimed, firmly wrestling Harry back down on the mattress and into his arms again. His face was sober, all amusement wiped clean away.

“I’ll have you know--and if you ever tell anyone _other_ than your best mates this, I will have to actually murder you, Potter--I’ll have you _know_ ,” he repeated firmly and slowly, when Harry squeaked in outrage, “that I have been _thinking_ about you for seven fucking long years now. Seven. Fucking. Years! I have _not_ , not once in all that time, _ever_ been able to _stop_ thinking about you. It drives me spare, do you know? Utterly, stupidly spare. I know what subjects you hate, which you like, which you love--which you’re good at and the particulars of each. I know where all your scars and marks are--or at least a lot of them. What I’ve not seen after Quidditch in the showers, I’ve found out about in other ways. Madam Pomfrey seriously believed I aspired to be a Healer for a few years there. I can list every single time you lost or won House points--and why. I followed your every single move during TriWizard--and hated myself for being glad you kept on insistently surviving! Bloody Horntails never should've been allowed, Harry--never! I know precisely what your favourite foods are and I know what you only eat because you must, how much you love sweets like treacle and pasties and how you despise boiled sprouts and still eat them anyway. I most definitely know what your proper size is in Quidditch gear--and I know exactly what’s hidden underneath those bloody behemoth-sized hand-me-downs you were cursed with wearing, all those years!”

“How did you find out about Dudley’s old clothes?” Harry burst out. “I never told you that!”

“No, _you_ didn’t, more’s the pity,” Draco agreed acerbically, “but Lovegood did tell. She told me rather a lot about you, Harry. As did your friend Dean Thomas. Merlin, even that poor unfortunate Dobby. He knew what foul conditions you’d been living in; he’d seen them! And he told me, damn it, and then I _knew_ , Harry. I’d heard rumours, before, but never believed them. But then...they all talked with me, answered my questions, Lovegood and Thomas, even poor Dobby, now and again. I learnt a lot, so much I’d never known about you, all the things my father wished me _never_ to know, and fuck, but I wish to Merlin I’d known it all much, much sooner.”

“What?” Harry subsided sulkily. “So you could pity me? Poor little orphan boy, stowed away in a cupboard? That’s rich, Draco, after all the many times you--”

“Said stupid, mean, ill-informed, frightfully nasty things, yes.” Draco leant in, pressing his forehead against Harry’s, rubbing high pale smooth brow against Harry’s scar and furrows, an action Harry found oddly calming. “Mmm, did them too; pulled pranks on you, tried to get you in trouble whenever I could? All that, Harry. All of it. What can I say? I was raised to be an utter arse; my father is probably the biggest arse in the Wizarding world. And I wanted to be just like him.”

“No, no.” Harry grinned. “ _Voldemort_ was the biggest arse in the Wizarding World, Draco. You were just a annoying insect compared to him. A Flobberworm in the ointment, really.”

“Oh, thanks so much, Potter.” The smouldering gaze transformed into a sullen glare. He glanced away, lips twisting. “Way to demean my efforts, comparing me to mere Flobberworm. Good to know I’ve been less than nothing to you, all this time.”

Harry had to actually laugh then. “No, no!” he protested, snuffling and trying to stifle his bubbling-up giggles over the affront on that glimmering face. That still vaguely pink-blotched, heavy-eyed, very physically sated face. His breath caught at the twitch of his own dick. This was unsettling, but also so, so reassuring, so bloody flattering, to hear all this, and from Draco of all people. “You...you were definitely _something_ , Draco. An ‘obsession’, Ron called it, back in Sixth.”

“Oh?” Draco perked up immediately, looking pleased. As did his cock, rubbing along cosily with Harry’s newly reawakened one. “I broke your nose in Sixth, didn’t I? That caught your attention, Harry? Do tell. I don’t know that _I’m_ necessarily up for kinky shagging but, for _you_ , I might be willing to experiment.”

“Stop right there!” Harry ordered, alarmed. “Absobloodylutely _not_ , Malfoy. We’ve only just brought one another off. One long snog with hands, damn it. I’m not about to leap straight into weird perverted sex acts with you, alright? I’m not a Slytherin!”

“I’m not asking you to, am I? I was pretty well chuffed with just...just this,” Draco grumped, making a point of shoving his hips right up against Harry’s and thrusting. The resulting rut silenced both of them for a long moment. “Ooo...Ah! Um...Er, wh-what was I saying? Just...just now.”

“Um. I...I dunno?” They slowed their movements in silent accord; it was obvious that though spirits were willing, bodies were knackered. “Oh, right. Er, you were telling me you’ve been thinking about me, Draco, and that you learned a bunch of private stuff about me from people I thought I could trust, is what.” Harry frowned. “Not that that’s so very bad of you--”

“I should hope not, Harry,” Draco grinned. “It gave me good reason to _stop_ telling myself that I hated you. That can't be a bad thing, can it? Honesty.”

“Well?” Harry cocked a sceptical eyebrow. “What did you tell yourself _after_ you’d sorted out you didn't actually hate me? That you fancied me or something?”

He meant the words as a challenge, albeit a soft one, but Constant Vigilance was the watchword and Harry was no fool.

Really, he thought, how could it be possible that Malfoy had so completely turned about over him, especially after all those years of mutual antagonism? After all, it hadn’t been till Harry had had all those glimpses of Draco through the distorted lens of Voldemort’s vision that he finally realized his old Quidditch rival was truly, really suffering--honestly hating and regretting his position. And then there’d been Harry’s little chats with Neville and Luna, after the Battle. Mr Ollivander, too, naturally. Oh, but how terribly curious Harry had been about Malfoy--and such a surge of relief he’d experienced, hearing all about how Draco had snuck Luna and the others extra food, or those seemingly threadbare blankets Charmed to Undetectably Ever-Warm. The ingenious ways Draco had worked out to make it seem as if he was torturing them each horribly--and then fellow students, later, when he’d been sent back to Hogwarts--with the Cruciatus, without ever actually harming them at all. Too, how he’d taught Luna and Dean some Wandless spells of their own, so they could have warmth, light, food and comfort when he wasn't able to go down to the dungeons himself to supposedly ‘torment’ them further.

Draco had saved them, really. Much as he’d saved Harry. Quietly, with cunning and brilliance. Without ever seeming to.  

“Well, _actually_ \--” Draco smiled.

“Oh!” Harry flinched, multiple realizations slamming him like a volley of bludgers. “It’s the exact _same_ , isn't it? You and me!”

“...The ‘same’, Harry?” Draco frowned, clearly puzzled. “What are you on about now? I’ve lost the page--or you have.”

“We both had to--what I mean is, _other people_ had to show us each what we are really like, you and me. That’s what.” Harry heaved a sigh, partly from sheer relief for having sorted it, that nagging similarity, partly because he really was done in, flagging but persistent erection aside. “I’m saying, we’re both arses, you and me, but we’re not _always_ arses, only we’ve always been that way with each other, is all. Not to _other_ people; in fact just the opposite, but neither of us _knew_ that, did we? We were always ever only rowing with each other...until just recently.”

“Ah.” Draco nodded slowly, his pale hair fanning with static across the nap of the bed pillow they shared. “Yes, I see what you mean. That makes sense, Harry. Makes me grateful for what my wand’s done as well. To make it stick, in a way. Wand chooses the Wizard, yes? Whether the Wizard realizes it or not.”

“Exactly! And...yeah, me too,” Harry agreed, happily complying when Draco pulled him closer, brushing a whisper of a kiss across his parted lips. "Mmmm, bloody glad to know you, Draco. Merlin, but you do taste nice. All minty.”

“Refresco,” Draco murmuring, lightly snogging Harry. “And now so do you. Not that you didn’t, before.”

“Mmm, alright, but stop now.”

“Why stop? Harry?”

“Because it’s brilliant but I’m afraid I’m shattered. Bit dizzy in the head. Snog tomorrow?”

“Shag tomorrow,” Draco corrected promptly. “Properly. Fine, then. G’night, Harry.”

“G’night, Draco.”

Harry, gratefully sliding off into the Land of Nod, got the vague impression he might've maybe heard his lover mumble something else, something about that ‘romantic rot’. Being ‘not so shabby’. It made him smile.

 


	8. June 12th, 1998

 

“He picked up the holly and phoenix wand and felt a sudden warmth in his fingers, as though wand and hand were rejoicing in their reunion.”

In the Headmaster’s Study, May 2, 1998. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling

 

**June 12th, 1998**

  
  
Harry blinked awake drowsily, coming gradually to an awareness that he was the little spoon. And yes, the weather continued brilliantly fair but cool blue window dressings diffused the morning’s early glare to a calming undersea teal hue. The bed was warm, made warmer by the length of sleeping Draco sprawled right up against him, one hand quite firmly in command of Harry’s hip. Nothing was green, nothing was spinning unduly, and there was a blessed absence of any sort of pressure to spend time in anyone's cellar.  
  
Well, there was a Slytherin lounging starkers next to him, and a lean but well-muscled thigh held him captive but it was comforting, yes. Comfortable? No!  
  
“Hrrrmmph? Draco,” Harry mumbled, shifting as best as he could under the sharp chin resting upon the tender skin between his shoulder and his throat. He feebly pried at the heavy arm and leg pinning him but to no avail. His bladder made a healthy bid for Harry’s attention. “Oh! Draco? Draco. Did you do something to your room?”  
  
Dead asleep still, Draco showed absolutely no signs of rolling off Harry willingly, and gave no indication of wakening naturally either, so Harry gave it up as a bad job after a moment and glanced curiously at the bedside table.  
  
Yes, there they were, his wand and Draco’s. Nestled up together as neatly as their masters were, with not even a sliver of a space between them. Harry smiled, seeing it. Mr Ollivander, it seemed, did not lie.  
  
Still, as creepily romantic as it all was, what with Harry’s wand at long last officially ‘choosing’ Draco’s, Harry was increasingly of a mind he very much desired to use the loo, soonest, and there was still a Malfoy-shaped barrier preventing him. Gritting his teeth, putting his back into it, but carefully, he simultaneously pushed, pulled and generally jostled Draco, finally managing to shift him. "Grr'off," Draco groaned, turning the other direction and burying his face in a pillow, "g'way, lemme 'lone."

“Aha!” Harry exclaimed in soft triumph, swinging off the mattress before he could be squashed again by the pendulum reaction. Draco, as it turned out, was a heavy but restless sleeper. But no fear of that. Harry had barely stuffed his feet into his slippers when the bed clothes erupted with a squawk and a shock of platinum white hair.  
  
“Whazza?!” Draco cried out, sitting bolt upright in one motion and staring ‘round the room with startled eyes. “Wherezzzat?” They alighted upon Harry, who was busily belting his robe and musing happily over a lovely hot shower and the prospect of a cuppa after. “Po- _Harry_? Harry, you alright? What’s going on? Where are you going?”  
  
“Good gods, just the lav. Calm down, you.”  
  
“Oh.” Draco blinked furiously, swinging his head about to squint at the wands. Smirking, he turned back to Harry, throwing the duvet aside. “Good-oh. Bath time, Harry. I have a few ideas about certain Charms as water-resistant lubrication I really want to test. Now seems appropriate.”

“Gah, what, already?” Harry goggled, and then sagged against the doorjamb of the lavatory, all thoughts of a quiet leisurely morning wank wiped from his mind as Draco clambered out of the bed and sauntered toward him. Naked, naturally.  “Ooooh,” he breathed, taking in the full monty. He recalled fumbling about with that meat-and-two-veg the night before; he’d not fully grasped--despite much grasping--exactly how impressive it was, Draco’s package. “That’s--you’re--oh, my fucking--”

“Yes,” Draco grinned, coming up beside Harry. “Now, shall we bathe? I have a penchant to explore every last inch, love. There's quite a bit of you I missed fully appreciating in the dark, last night.”

“Oh?” Unbidden, a further host of lovely memories surged through Harry; ones he instantly knew he’d quite like to build upon and expand. They made his previous wank material seem limp and rather disappointing. His mouth watered and his dick quite forgot about any need to act as conduit for anything other than hot semen. “Do--do you now?”

“Hmmm, oh, yes.” Draco, never one to hold back when he was ramped up, laid the gentlest of fingertip touches upon the tip of Harry’s attentive prick and stroked it, an excruciatingly delicious sensation. “Starting with this,” he continued, taking it up fully in his hand and leaning in to mouth at Harry’s scar, his voice dropping down to a sensuous rumble. “Right here. And ending with this,” he whispered, blowing oh, ever so softly, straight into Harry’s straining ear, the other hand grasping at Harry’s bum cheek right though his robe and spreading it, so as to pet  at questing forefinger at Harry’s arsehole. "Right there." 

“Ah...hah.” Harry found himself nodding readily, utterly beguiled. "That's very...uh-huh."

“Uh- _huh_. Game, Potter?”

“Oh yeah. S-Set!” Harry stuttered, trying urgently to rip off his robe one-handed and thrusting himself bodily straight into Draco’s waiting arms as he did so. “Ready!”  

“Match, then,” Draco replied smartly, the gray of his pupils well overtaken with velvety black, and swept Harry right up into his arms. His robe and slippers Vanished but Harry didn't much notice. 


	9. One Week Later

“You'd better hurry up, they'll be waiting for 'the Chosen Captain' — 'The Boy Who Scored'— whatever they call you these days.”

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling

 

 

**One Week Later**

 

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, Harry! You have the finest arse in all of bloody England!”

“Oh my Merlin, Draco, just please--please, move!”

"So round, and so--so!" Draco, crouched over Harry atop the bed in the ‘gardener’s cottage’, grimaced mightily and did that fine thing, but far too slowly for Harry's liking, his long fingers kneading the globes of Harry’s very naked bum, spreading the dampened cheeks wide like a blooming flower. “Is that--is it alright? I’m not hurting you? You are alright, Harry?”

“Fuck, yes, I’m alright!” Harry groaned, scrabbling at the sheets in happy agony. “Stop asking me that! Stop admiring my bum and do something useful! I’ll be even more ‘alright’ if you could just bloody move. **Faster**.”

His desperate hand found and clutched enthusiastically at his own cock, so full and reddened it seemed as if it would burst. The _thing_ , the magical little nubble of amazingly erotic flesh that existed inside his arse for the apparent sheer joy of sending him stratospheric when it was touched? It throbbed, demanding attention, and the only solution to that particular quandary was pestering Harry over his comfort level!

“No, that’s rubbish!” Harry whinged, reconsidering his state and Draco's ill-timed concern for his well-being. “I'm’ far from ‘alright’, slowtop.” He craned his neck around to glare over his shoulder at his lover, flexing his sphincter in just the way that always had Draco’s hips bucking. “I’m actually _dying_ here, curse you, all because you’re not buggering me properly. Just do that, please move, oh Merlin, that’s it, that’s the ticket, fucking--Oh, criminy! Crikey! Yeessssss! Like that!”

“Okay, okay, okay, don’t die!” Draco panted. "I'm going, I'm going! Pardon me, Potter, for--" 

Having got going, he was reaming away at Harry’s arse with some measure of finesse and a great deal of fervour. Both young Wizards had learnt a great deal in the week they’d been shagging. Harry definitely approved of a great many Wandless spells Draco had taught him, for one thing. And Draco had quite willingly mastered a few more, all from the international bestseller Wizards Who Shag (All & Sundry).

"Shut. It," Harry ordered tersely, finally achieving full alt.

“Oh! Oh, oh, oh! Yeah, that’s--gods, I bloody love you, Harry. You can’t fucking die on me, not now!”

“Oh gods, oh gods, yes there, right there,” Harry gasped, swiveling his pelvis back and meeting every thrust with a panache borne of a week's determined practice and sheer Gryffindor willpower. He could care less about dying, unless it was _la petite mort._  “Keep on, keep on, don’t stop, don’t stop, oh harder, harder--put your back into it, you great wanker!”

“I am, but am I--am I hitting it?” Draco demanded, shifting on his reddened knees and really following through. “The thing; tell me I’ve got it, Harry--the thing! Do you feel me? Do you?”

He wrenched a hand away from Harry’s most excellent bum and grasped at his cock instead, tugging, sticking his sticky fingers roughly between Harry’s own and shaking them off with a bob-wrist-twist maneuver.

“I feel you, I feel you--so big; I'mma goin' to die! Oh, thank fuck, fuuuuck! Draco! Do it!”

Harry gasped his relief as Draco took over, his face flattened against the heap of pillows as his body fully relaxed into what had become their morning routine. It was lovely. First tea, then a bath, and then a thorough shagging. Or shagging, then tea, then a bath. Occasionally, it was shagging, shagging, tea and more shagging, just for variety. Sometimes but not necessarily always in that exact order.

“Oh, yes, that’s it, that’s right exactly; you’re a fucking wonder, Draco--harder, harder, harder! Faster, faster, faster!”  

“Almost--almost there--I can’t! Hold it! Oh Circe!” Draco cried out, bucking and writhing against Harry’s bowed back, his bollocks slapping forward with every forward motion, his palm sheathing and sliding rhythmically up and down on Harry’s cock. “Are you--you close? Are you near, Harry, ‘cause I’m gonna--I’m gonna!”

“Oh gods yes, “ Harry wailed, his too-full prick finally releasing its load, decorating the mussed bedclothes with a stream of sticky spunk. “Oh fuck me--fuck me harder! Please! Please come--oh please come, come on, come on, Draco, to the brim, do it--oh, bloody Hell, _that spot_. Aaaaieeee!”

“Haaarrrrrreeee!”

Draco toppled over like a felled tree, kindly not crushing Harry in process. They had learnt a few things indeed, and one was how _not_ to have stupid accidents whilst shagging.

“...Gah, waz...good,” Harry told him, petting his breathless bedmate.

“I’ll!...Say!...Fuck!”

Some moments later, Harry frowned up at the canopy, idly admiring it. It, unlike the one in Draco’s childhood bedroom, was a lovely pale blue. In fact, much of the expansive ‘cottage’ they'd been forced to move into whilst the Manor itself was occupied by an ever-growing array of refugees was decorated in soothing shades. Blue, purple, the random note of orchid, mauve or lilac. And it sported its own miniature Morning Room, which positively delighted Harry. No one ever visited them there, which delighted them both. Excepting the Elves, of course, bearing fresh tea and clean linens.  

“Wait,” he mumbled quietly, listening the stertorous breathing of the bloke next to him. “Draco. You said something. Hey, what did you say? Just now?”

“...What?” Draco raised a vague hand in the air as if it were the greatest of all efforts to be made by a Wizard of the 20th Century. Possibly he was signalling he was alive, which Harry appreciated. As they’d both had a few orgasms resulting in temporary catatonia recently, courtesy Wizards Who Shag. “Are you mumbling about? Tempus. Are we late yet?”

“Only half nine; plenty of time yet. Er. Did you just,” Harry demanded, clambering atop his prone companion and briefly admiring the utter debauchment of his usually so-posh-it-was-painful Malfoy. “Did you just say _that_?”

“Say what, Harry?” Draco instantly went all shifty-eyed, dropping his forearm over his face to disguise what seemed remarkably like guilt. Or perhaps mortal embarrassment. Merlin knew, Harry thought, neither of them had mentioned the ‘romantic rot’ since that first night. “Don’t know what you’re going on about. Bath? Bit sticky here.”

“No. Not yet. You.” Harry leant down, bending over so that his face was only inches away from the accused and shoving the intervening arm out of the way easily. “Just now.” The Mark on it didn't bother him in the slightest; they’d already had that discussion and it was fading fast, as all of Voldemort's evil miasma was fast disappearing from the Wizarding world. “You said--and I heard you, Draco Malfoy, with my own ears--that you loved me. Didn't you?”

“Ah.” Draco blinked up at him, bringing his hands down to rest atop Harry’s kneecaps, idly caressing them with his thumbs. “Er,” he swallowed visibly, Adam’s apple bobbing, and leveled his gaze at the top of Harry’s pubes. “So?”

“‘So,” Harry smiled sweetly, brushing the disarray of fine platinum white hairs off of Draco’s sweaty brow, dropping a quick kiss there to hopefully aid in frown-erasing. “Did you mean it?”

“No, of course not, Potter,” Draco claimed brazenly, eyes rolling in derision, sex-blotched cheeks paling, kiss-plumped lips contorting into something resembling his old Hogwarts sneer, that certain mean expression he’d always reserved for Harry. Sometimes Ron and Hermione, maybe Neville, but really mostly always Harry. “How could I possibly love you? Haven’t we hated one another all this time?”

“Well, not now, Malfoy!” Harry interrupted indignantly. “Merlin!”  
  
“Obviously not now, you speccy idiot; we’re shagging and it’s brilliant, but.”

Draco stopped his silly sneering but only to replace it with an ominously grave expression. Harry frowned, trying to follow along. Something was most definitely off and he felt if he just listened a little harder in-between the lines, he’d be able to sort it.

“Just because we’re wand bonded now doesn't instantly correlate to us having deeper feelings. I want to shag you, is all.” Draco shrugged; Harry frowned more intently. “You are particularly appealing to me, Salazar knows why, considering how scrawny you are still and so--so.” He took a deep breath, pausing the onslaught of what Harry decided was utter rubbish and tosh. “So--”

“Tenacious, I believe, would be the word you seek. Draco,” Harry said flatly. “What did we say about lying?”

“M’not lying!” Draco looked scandalized. “You _are_ very thin yet; you really need to eat more of the food all of the Malfoy house elves are tripping over themselves to feed you! I’m amazed your arse is as fine as it is, really; a strong wind could blow you away.” He trailed off, subsiding under Harry’s very, very minatory stare. “Er, um, alright, I give. And...what if I did? Did you mind it?”    

“No, of course not, you great wanker,” Harry beamed. Emotion flooded those changeable grey eyes; Draco grinned right back at Harry, though tentatively. Harry cocked his chin, considering. “It’s not exactly horrible, is it? Being told you’re loved. Strange, maybe, but not awful.”

“Oh.” Draco glanced off, focussing on their wands, his fingers tightening on Harry’s flexing thighs. “Not horrible, is it. Good-oh, I guess. Well, it’s likely close to ten o’clock now; we should prepare for Hogwarts. Breakfast here or out, Harry?” he asked, his voice artificially light. “I call Grimmauld Place if out. McGonagall Owled to confirm we should be there by luncheon, remember? Memorial starts promptly at half two.”

He made as if to shift out from under Harry, but Harry literally wished himself heavier--a silent Wandless Gravius Faciam; ta, Malfoy--clamped his thighs tight about Draco's legs and leant down so as to touch noses with the lackwit he was shagging.  

“Oh no you don’t. Not so fast.”

“What?” As a probable lackwit, Draco seemed to have lately developed the greatest of difficulty meeting Harry’s gaze directly; when Harry went as if to grab at his chin, he simply lowered his eyelids and hid behind a fan of lashes. “We don't want to be tardy, Harry. Merlin knows what McGonagall would do to us if we were. Besides, it’s disrespectful.”

“Look, Draco, I don’t know about love, much.” Harry gave up the assault and gently pressed his closed lips over Draco’s parted ones, forestalling whatever further nonsense his cunning Slytherin might spew. “No, shut it for a moment and just listen--please. You don’t have to look at me, just listen. I don't know much about love, at least not between two...people.”

Harry paused, thinking back on Cho and then Ginny, his mind skittering through the myriad of similarities and differences between them both and now Draco.

“But you know,” he went on with quiet determination, one hand creeping up to be laid gently against a blanching cheek only slightly scratchy with wheaten morning stubble. “Or maybe you don’t and I have to tell you.”

He paused, kissing Draco again, enjoying the wide-eyed startlement, the look of hopefulness. He was ever so fit when he wasn't carping, Harry thought. And he was utterly lovely when he was--Harry closed his eyes, just briefly, for it was difficult, finding the proper words, and this was perhaps the most important conversation of his life.

“But I _know_ that I want to see you-- _be_ with you--when you’re old. I want to see you being happy, ever so much happier than your father ever was. He was such a mean, small man, so closed off--and you’re not, Draco. Not at all. You’re big inside, and growing, and good. And I want to be a part of that, the happiness. A large part--the main one, really. I guess I’m a little selfish--I sound it, don’t I, wanting all that--” “

“Oh gods no! No, you’re not selfish, you idiot Gryffindor. Don’t you know I’d give you anything, anything you want? And if you want my time, well, Harry, you don’t even have to ask. It’s all yours, anything you like, anything at all.”

“Oh, well,” Harry blushed, but Draco promptly caught his shoulders and rolled them both over, so swiftly it took a second for Harry to realize what had happened.

“Harry? Do you honestly mean that?" Draco prodded him, looking as if the fate of his world hung upon Harry's reply. "You’re not lying, not trying--trying to make the best of it? Because I would totally understand if you--well, honestly I’d hate it if you were, but--”

“You’re heavy!” Harry squirmed, but not too, too hard, and managed to slap a hand right across Draco’s blathering mouth, putting halt to the nonsense. “And you reek, Draco. Shut it, of course I meant it. I wouldn’t say it to you if I didn’t.”

Draco gurgled, looking cross-eyed down his nose at Harry’s offending hand.

“Alright?” Cautiously, Harry pulled his palm away, but not before Draco mischievously licked it. “ _Ew_!

“Oh, don’t be like that, Harry; I’ve licked most every part of you by now," Draco stated smugly. "So? It’s okay that I said it, then?” he kept on, abstractedly playing with Harry’s rumpled locks. “That’s alright then,” he smiled when Harry hummed and nodded assent. "What even is this, what you have on your head? It defies all reason, Harry." 

Still, he was quick enough to change the subject, giving one tangled hank a gentle tug.

“Hmm, we should both bathe. All sweaty and covered in spunk, you are. We need to get on. McGonagall waits for no Wizard.”

“It really is okay, for the record,” Harry grinned, rescuing his hair by means of covering it up with the edge of a tugged-down pillow. “I rather like it, you saying it aloud. Makes me think you don't just want me for my incredible physique--and my fucking wand.”

“Your ‘fucking wand’, Harry,” Draco shot back promptly, hand going swiftly under the sheet to lay firm claim to Harry’s penis, “is second only to your marvelous bum in my estimation. Don’t dare deride it.”

“Shan’t.” Harry upped his attempt to break free of his smirking Malfoy-blanket and finally met with success. “It’s important to me; I use it in the bog every day. Like to use it now, actually, so shove off.” He swung out of bed feeling as if his heart was lighter somehow, even though Draco had laid a hefty claim to it. “I want a real shower this time. And a full English too. Your Elven French pastries are all very well but I need my proteins, Malfoy. You keep sucking them all out of me, you bloody vampire.”

“Don’t be a prick, Potter, you love it when I do,” Draco replied, hauling his own pale arse out from under the bedclothes, bare feet meeting the parquet flooring with a decided thump. “And do tell me if we’re to be dealing with the Grieving Weasleys or the Longbottom-Lovegood sex menage this morning. I call the Grieving Weasleys. I’d like to be able to keep my breakfast down. Please let’s go to Grimmauld and let Kreacher feed us. I do enjoy his way with the bangers.”

“Weasleys it is,” Harry replied agreeably, belting his toweling robe and passing along Draco’s silk. “We’ll bathe there, I think. I need my school togs anyway. Side-Along me?”

“Pleasure is mine, Potter.” Draco goosed Harry in passing as he thrust himself into his dressing gown, the bed made up neatly behind them with only the barest of glances spared and a twitch of an eyebrow. A long arm wrapped Harry close, securing him. “All fucking mine. Salazar, that arse! Grimmauld Place!”


	10. Later That Same Day

“No,” said Myrtle defiantly, her voice echoing loudly around the old tiled bathroom. “I mean he’s sensitive, people bully him, too, and he feels lonely and hasn’t got anybody to talk to, and he’s not afraid to show his feelings and cry!”

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling

 

**Later That Same Day**

 

It was half two precisely. McGonagall, ever prompt, stood at the Head’s lectern, addressing what quite seemed to be half of England’s Wizarding community:

“And it is with the greatest of pleasure that I present to you all the special Memorials Mr Draco Malfoy and Mr Harry Potter have designed and installed for us here at Hogwarts, in order that we may share our treasured moments of joy given to us by each and every one of our dear departed students. Please welcome Mr Harry Potter and Mr Draco Malfoy!”

Headmistress McGonagall’s voice carried over the faint sounds of repressed sobs and sighing, the sparse and scattered rallying cries of ‘Huzzah!’. Every head swiveled in the direction of Harry and Draco, both clad in appropriate mourning, both proudly wearing their House colours.

For the purposes of the Memorial service, they stood off-centre on the temporary dais the Hogwarts staff had erected in the partially restored Great Hall, before what, at first glance, seemed to be but a plain glass window, middling in size and interesting to the eye only for its octagonal shape. Multi-paned in a tiny diamond pattern, the glass was so exceptionally transparent it glittered like a great mirror, refracting yet again the splintered shards of light reflected off the hastily Reparo’d stained glass windows dominating the Great Hall.

“Thank you, all!” With a flourish of his wand and hard gulp, Draco stepped forward, head held high. “Ahem. As some of you may be aware, Harry Potter and I were requested by the Headmistress to turn our various skills towards creating a suitable tribute for the many we lost to Voldemort’s cruelty.”

A swelling murmur ran through the crowd, with definite undertones of scorn and anger. A few merely nodded though, holding their peace, the Weasley family and those who’d been held captive at the Manor amongst them.  

“If I may--if I may continue?” Draco coughed and paled but carried on, bravely, buoyed up by the full wattage of Harry’s approving smile. The two of them edged closer together, hips bumping, Harry making sure to link elbows with his wand mate and fellow Memorial maker. Nothing like a total lack of subtlety and in-their-face bondedness to divert the haters from their lingering anger, he felt. Draco’s subtle wink confirmed his instincts. The crowd quieted. “Thank you.”

“Whilst I’m very aware it appears very ill-suited for our Headmistress to invite _me_ to be involved, as a former follower of the monster, I assure you all most sincerely that I came to the understanding that Voldemort was evil incarnate a considerable time before the Final Battle. It was the horrendous murder of Professor Charity Burbage by Voldemort’s Horcrux Nagini, which happened in my very own home, before my own eyes, which made it crystal clear that my family and I had most stupidly thrown their lot in with a heartless, murderous scum who should have remained dead when Harry here first did him in, all unknowing!”

The crowd reeled, in some cases because it was first that many of them had heard a public word from the sealed lips of the young Master Malfoy. For others, it was because of the many and conflicting accounts they’d devoured in the rags or heard on the wireless. Only the _Quibbler_ had been granted the favour of an in-depth interview with Harry Potter; the _Daily Prophet_ and _Witch Weekly_ had had to make due with street gossip and the miscellaneous accounts of other survivors.   

“Hear, hear! Cheers to sorting it out; better late than never, what? Go on, young Malfoy!” boomed the surprising voice of one Augusta Longbottom. “Young folks,” she remarked loudly, turning to address her beau Mr Lovegood. “It’s how they learn, isn’t it? Making mistakes, heeding the pap-and-guff their so-called elders feed them. I’m sure we may all forgive them, having been young once--aren't _you_ , dearest Xenophilius?”

Her outspokenness--and selective glares--prompted a turn of the tide in the mood of the room. People began nodding along, bandying about mutters of  ‘Unity, isn’t it the thing?’, ‘Exonerated, don’t you know? Heard it direct from new Minister Shacklebolt myself!’ and even ‘Poor young lad, he must’ve have been so frightened!’’

Draco winced; Harry only grinned more widely, making certain to catch the eye of a few persons who were particularly averse to the Wizangamot’s unanimous decision to exempt all Hogwarts students from the Trials.  

“Tell us what you and young Potter have done for all our poor murdered students, will you?” cried out one of them, an unpleasant chap Harry recalled from an overheard conversation at the Leaky. “It had best be something extraordinary, Malfoy, to make up for all we’ve suffered!”

“It is indeed very special, very special indeed!” piped up Professor Flitwick, cheerily sending up a spray of multi-coloured sparks. “I should know, Mr Macmillan. I supervised it myself!”     

“Thank you, Ma’am, Sir. Er, as I was saying, I, at least, abjectly apologize for my actions,” Draco, having had quite enough of all the hullabaloo, raised his voice to a shout, under the encouraging eye of McGonagall. “And wished to do all I could to remediate the harm done to so many. I am, as it happens, very skilled with Wandless Magic, and also Memory Charms, and Harry here--as we all now realize with much gratitude--has such a massive supply of sheer magical strength available to him that he is able to easily power a Modified Pensieve Charm for eons. Between us two, and with aid from our redoubtable mentor, the learned Professor Flitwick--”

Draco paused, awaiting the rising spatter of applause to die down. Professor Flitwick rose up once more and took a courtly bow at the urging of his fellow profs. T’was McGonagall who sent up the sparklers this round.  

“We have devised a way for all of us to share our fond memories of our fellow classmates, our sons and daughters, our much-mourned students, our Staff. We present you the Hogwarts Memorial Pensieve Windows. If you will now attend to Harry, please?”

Harry twirled his wand, setting off yet another shower of sparks, all cascading down around the product of their hours of toil. The crowd automatically ‘oooh’d’ and ‘awww’d’ for a moment--until they stopped, obviously puzzled.

As, after all, it seemed to be just a rather bog-standard window.  

“Here we have what seems to be a plain and simple window; boring as anything,” Draco said archly, eliciting a snort of amusement from Harry. “ _H_ _owever_ , simply by pressing one’s hand or one’s wand to a pane of glass in that window, each of you may contribute a Memory, to be shared with others and to be on permanent display here at Hogwarts for the remainder of eternity. Harry, if you would be so kind as to demonstrate?”

Draco stepped to the side, and Harry let their arms disentangle only so far as to palm’s length. He kept fast grip upon Draco’s hand, though; Draco’s grateful gaze spoke volumes.

“This one here is for Professor Burbage,” Harry said as the light applause died away. “Draco and I thought it only right that she be honoured first, although of course there are Memorials for all who passed on here in the halls and grounds of Hogwarts and also--also _elsewhere_ , fighting in all the many battles we’ve been forced to fight all this time. I hope that the family of Colin Creevey is present today?”

In the back of the Hall, an arm shot up. “Here, here, Harry!” Dennis shouted. “Harry, we’re here!”

Harry smiled. “I wanted the Creevey family to know that Colin has a Memorial Window. I know there’s a lot of memories we all want and need to share of him; he is sorely missed. Alright, Dennis?”

"Alright, Harry!"

"But what about--?"

"Where is the one for my--?"

A bustle broke out in the Hall, with people standing up and shouting out names of the various fallen, asking who was represented, if any weren't included, and the noise rapidly rose to an unbearable level.

“Silencio!” Headmistress McGonagall boomed, instantaneously muzzling them all; a pin could've dropped in the resulting quietude.  “Good Wizards and Witches, all fine Wizarding Folk here today, your attention right now! I am positive we can and will sort all your particular questions later on but now is the time set aside for a demonstration of this incredible magical device Mr Draco Malfoy and Mr Harry Potter have created for us. All at my express wish and command, and symbolic of an unbroken and united Wizardry! Mr Potter, Mr Malfoy, if you will, please show us how. **_Now_ **!”

“Uh!” Harry started, whipping his wand over to the window on display. “Right. Like this. Simply touch the pane and think of a memory. It will replicate itself and permeate the glass pane--like so.”

He frowned, concentrating; the crowd watched in  Muffliato’d awe as the glass pane became infused with a rainbow of colours, each glowing in turn. For an instant, every one of those gathered saw the image of the late, lamented Professor Burbage, standing at the head of Harry’s long-ago Muggle Studies class and smiling kindly as she carefully operated a Muggle toaster.  

“There, you see? That’s a copy of my favourite memory of Professor Burbage, right there. And if any one of you comes up and touches it, you’ll be able to share it, just as you would with a regular Pensieve, alright? It's as simple as that. And anyone else who has a Memory to share may come right up here, as soon as we’re through, and add it to the Burbage Memorial. Does everyone understand that? It’s easy-peasy--even the littlest child may manage it, I promise you!”

“-------!!! -------!!!” A sea of silent cheering and clapping occurred. Harry glanced over at McGonagall, who patiently waited till it was nearly at end before lifting her lingering Silencio. “ _Ahhhh_ ! **Oooohhh**!”

“Right, right,” Harry shouted, trying to be heard above the rustling crowd. “Thank you! Draco and I are very glad you like them!”

Rather more than merely ‘like’, the gathered mourners looked as though they might rush the dais at any moment, and swarm the array of labeled Memorial Windows Draco Wandlessly Revelio’d from a dispersed cloud of Peruvian Darkness Powder.

“Are there any questions? No? Good, good! Have at it, then. And please make sure to thank Draco Malfoy here for providing all the Magical material and Wandless expertise and also please thank Professor Flitwick for his help--which was really brill of you, sir!--and also Mr Ollivander, who taught us both how to better focus and cast our combined Magical requirements upon the Charmed glass!”

“Right, shut it, Harry. Come away now! You’ll be trampled!”

Draco yanked Harry off the presentation dais at just the right moment, effectively preventing them both from done in by the surging sea of enthusiastic mourners.

“Oh Merlin,” he whispered to Harry, when they were both retreated to the relative safety of an alcove, tucked out of sight. “I’m amazed no one Hexed me up there, Harry. I had three different sorts of Shield Charms going, all the time I was speaking, and not one of them pinged!”

“Well, that’s good.” Harry grinned and nodded meaningfully over at one Right Honourable Dame Augusta Longbottom, who was being squired about the Great Hall by a very attentive Mr Lovegood. Luna and Neville trailed after them, holding hands and looking horribly soppy. “I think you know who to thank for that, right? I’d say your barmy plan to house Nev and his scary Gran worked out for the better. Even if she's done in the greater part of your port.”

“Oh, but I should certainly hope so, gentlemen,” Headmistress McGonagall interjected, appearing at Harry’s elbow in a poofing cloud of cat hair and causing them both to jump. Draco was forced to suppress an involuntary sneeze.  “Do excuse me for interrupting a private conversation but I really need a word with you both.”

“Oh?” Draco paled and bit his lip, causing Harry to frown and press close up against him. “Is there something amiss, Headmistress? Merlin, I hope not--I did my best to make sure the whole Memory-transfer was foolproof!”  

“No, no, nothing is wrong, Draco,” McGonagall waved off Draco’s worry. “I only wished to tell you both that it can never be an error of good judgement to extend kindness and succour to those who are in need.”

“Oh, well, now…” Draco demurred. “There’s no call for--”

“And by that,” McGonagall continued firmly, “I include myself and my Staff. We are immensely grateful that you were able to find a politic way to clear out Hogwarts of all the extraneous people so that Staff could actually get to work, putting it all back together.”

“Ah, um! About that--” Harry got in, before he was also cut off.

“And, Draco, I must say that was an inspired plan of yours,” McGonagall beamed from one to the other. “I applaud it. Harry, you are also to be lauded, voluntarily moving yourself into Malfoy Manor and giving up use of the Black house to the Weasley family and other victims of Voldemort’s destruction, whilst they all await the rebuilding efforts the Ministry has now in hand. It is exemplary behaviour on both your parts, all around.”

Her smile positively wreathed her wrinkled face, leaving it glowing. Helpless but chuffed, Harry and Draco exchanged speaking glances and tentatively mumbled their thanks for being thanked. It was, Harry thought, all very nice, _but_.  

Upon the dais, there was to be heard the murmur of pleased exclamation, the occasional sob, the squeal of a parent delighting upon discovering all the happy memories their departed son or daughter had inspired. And each Memorial changed as it was added to, the stained glass colours resolving into images of students giggling, flying, hard at work learning Potions or revising, even laughing with mates at Mrs Puddifoot’s or Zonko’s during a Hogsmeade weekend.

“As Chair of the Ministry’s Anonymous Reparations Fund, I commend both of you for your contributions as Founding Members. That was very well done. The Weasleys especially thanked the Fund for the monetary contribution _one_ of our top-tier Members has made, in Professor Burbage’s name, to facilitate the reconstruction of their Burrow.”

Draco blushed scarlet; he and Harry exchanged yet another look, this one quite startled on Harry's part, whilst McGonagall casually turned about to view the mourners, the assorted Governors and those of the student body who’d returned to honour their fellows.

“To say _I_ am personally pleased with you both is an understatement, gentleman. We’ve all--myself, the Board of Governors, the Staff and the Ministry--decided to accord you both a position on the Board itself--a much more concrete method of ensuring your--”

“Cooperation in the Restoration, Professor?” Harry asked innocently. “You know, it’s not as though you needed to--”

“Twist our wand arms or anything,” Draco chimed in. “At least in my case, Headmistress. You’ve know I’ve quite a lot to make up for.”

“You two,” McGonagall presented them with admonishing and terribly fond gaze, bright and sharp as it had ever been, and not feeble in the slightest, “will doubtless be the cause of my early retirement. However, it’s been finalized. I shall expect to see you both attending the annual Governors Meeting. Tuesday next, ten sharp; don't be late. Now, be off with you. No need to stay for all the festivities; I can sense you’re itching to flee.”

“Oh, er…” Draco fidgeted, looking unsure. “Is that? Should we really--?”

“Oh gods, yes!” Harry had no such qualms and promptly dragged his waffling bond mate close. “May I, Headmistress?”

“By all means, Harry.” McGonagall bowed her head. “ _I_ never saw you.”

Without further adieu, Harry DisApparated them. Because he could, damn it; Hogwarts itself allowed him. There was a peaceful private cottage waiting, right? With a bed. And all that profound supply of magical strength Draco had rabbited on about had to come with at least some perks, right? Right!


	11. One Week After That

"Malfoy bent down to examine a shelf full of skulls.

'… everyone thinks he’s so smart, wonderful Potter with his scar and his broomstick —'

'You have told me this at least a dozen times already,' said Mr. Malfoy, with a quelling look at his son.”

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , J.K. Rowling

  


**One Week After That**

 

“Fuck me, oh please, just--Draco!”

“Oh, yes, no fear,” Draco growled, having bent Harry over potting bench in the Malfoy’s East Greenhouse on a whim and pressed his impatient cock into an arsehole still loose and well-lubed from their post-prandial bout. “I do believe I can go for days, Harry.” He sawed in and out, eliciting the most needy noises. “You’re fucking insatiable, you make me mad; I love it--love you--arghhhh!”

“Bollocks. I’m going to require another Pepper-Up.”

Harry, flopping down onto the meticulously Elf-kept brick floor after, heaved a happy, sated sigh. He grimaced up at the light diffusing through the frosted panes, inhaling the heavy scents of gardenia and thyme, lavender and lilacs when his idiot lover burst out laughing next to him.

“You’ve got to be joking me, Draco!” He wrenched himself ‘round to narrow his eyes at the offender. “You’re the one who won’t let up. I think I’ve had more sex in this last fortnight than all the Wizarding world combined--and we both know everyone’s shagging everyone now!”

“Yes, well.” Draco grinned fiendishly and rolled to prop himself on an elbow. He waggled his eyebrows at Harry, leering. “Make hay, sunniest June weather England has experienced in fifty years and all that. Cause to celebrate. Speaking of, I’ve something for you. Want to see?”

“Mmm,” Harry replied absently, prying himself off the floor and setting about Wandlessly cleaning his mussed clothing. “Sure. I love presents, you know that.”

“I do,” Draco nodded, looking terribly pleased with himself. “It’s just another thing we’ve in common; who knew there’d be so many?”

“Ollivander, apparently,” Harry grinned, reseating himself on the bench which they so recently besmirched with bodily fluids--but only after he’d silently Scourgify’d it. “Or rather our wands did. Anyway...you mentioned a gift, just now?”

“Oh, shut your eyes then.” Draco ensured it was so by parking his fine arse on the bench next to Harry and slapping a hand over Harry’s specs. “You can't peek until I tell you, alright?”

“Mmm.” Harry heard a rustle and then the soft ‘shoop!’ sound of something being UnShrunk. His hands were taken up by Draco’s and a many-sided object was thrust into them.   “May I now?” he asked, fingers instantly exploring the item. It was hard, first off, and felt like wood and glass. A framed picture? “How about now? May I look now? Please?”

“Yes, do.”

Harry opened his eyes. Dark, ebon-hued wood enclosed a miniature version of the same Memorial Windows he and Draco had created for Hogwarts.

“What’s this? A memento?” Curious, he turned it this way and that, seeing the glint of rainbow colours that indicated there were already Memories sparking about in the magical workings. “Draco?”

“No, it works, same as the others. It’s small, as I thought you might like it with you.”

“Oh? What’s in it?”

“Look, it’s not much, Harry,” Draco took a deep breath and then rushed it out, his eyes grave and kind. Harry left his wavering frown go, instantly softening. Draco was always trying, lately, to think about others and Harry adored him for it.  “But I knew--I was told, rather--how very much you’ve missed her, your Owl, Hedwig, and I recalled her quite clearly, over the years. She was beautiful, wasn't she? And then Lovegood and Longbottom were willing to contribute, you know, and me, I’d watch her swooping to you in the mornings all the time--that one morning with the Nimbus, right? You were so chuffed. So.”  

“You...you’ve made me a Memorial for Hedwig, Draco?”

Draco nodded, high spots of colour staining his cheekbones. “I have. I thought. Well, I thought you might like it, to have and to keep. And when Weasley and Granger return from Australia they can probably add to it, right? And Professor Hagrid has said he’d be pleased to--”

“Draco!” Harry exclaimed, flinging himself at his lover, but carefully so as not to damage his gift. Somehow, Draco didn’t seem to mind being half-strangled, if it was meant lovingly.  “Draco, you great git, you romantic prat--I love it! I love it, and I love that you thought to make it for me--for her!”

“Harry? Oh, you--Harry, come now. Stop. Oh, don’t!”

Oh, no! He was sobbing, Harry realized, even as he was gathered up, closely enfolded in comfort and having his unruly hair petted and his tear-streaked cheeks frantically kissed. Draco muttered vague reassuring things and utter nonsense into his hair.

Harry grinned, through his ghastly snuffling and dripping. He was crying, but it was alright. It was. He buried his nose in Draco’s collar. Such a difference between happy tears and the other.  

“You great silly, it’s alright,” Draco was saying; he’d not stopped chattering on. P’raps he fancied he could talk Harry out of crying, what?  “You mustn't blubber; you never do, I hear. I’ve certainly never seen you, except that one time, and I’ll catch hell from McGonagall and Granger and all those bloody Weasleys who love you so much if they ever, ever discover I’ve finally done something shocking enough to make you turn on the waterworks. Do hush, Harry. It was meant to make you smile!”

“Oh, it does,” Harry sniffed, rubbing the frame with trembling fingertips. “It does, really. I’m just...just there’s been a lot lately, you know? Happening. To me. To us.” He hiccoughed, blinking as Draco scrubbed his face clean with a silk pocket square produced from thin air and a raised eyebrow. “S-Sorry about this; I’m not such a whinger or a crybaby normally. I do like it. Rather!”

“Good,” Draco nodded, appeased. “Happy to hear it.” He whipped another small item from one of his robe pockets, snapping open the tiny velvet box with a flourish and waving it under Harry’s slightly clogged nose. “Because, naturally.” His smile tilted just a tad, as he bit his lip. “Then you’ll have no problem with wearing this, either.” His bit his lip harder, whitening it, and one pale eyebrow twitched of its own volition. “As a token, of course. Bit peculiar, wearing wands on one’s fingers, don’t you think?”  

“ **Gah** ! What _is_ that? Is that a bloody **_ring_ **?!”

Harry nearly dropped his beloved Hedwig Memorial in shock. Draco must’ve built a Cushioning Charm into, for it instantly floated up, unharmed. Harry whipped his attention back to discover his scheming Slytherin had the blasted ring out of the box and at the ready, all set to jam it onto Harry’s finger at the slightest indication of acceptance.

“Yes, it’s a bloody ring, Harry, and you’ll be wearing it on your finger when we go back to Hogwarts next week or McGonagall will be strictly assigning us separate rooms on separate floors in opposing towers,” Draco informed Harry grimly, talking fast with no pauses when Harry gaped at him, gobsmacked. “No sneaking, no privileges, just bloody enforced abstinence and a very insistent wand bond being thwarted, night after ghastly night. None of that sounds remotely comfortable to me. _So_ , if you want to shag, Potter, you’ll accept my formal offer of betrothal. This instant.”

“Not a Kneazle in Hell’s chance!”

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” Draco soothed. “At least look at it. Isn’t it handsome?”

The ring itself was clearly venerable. It practically oozed protective Charms, and was a colour of metal falling somewhere between old gold and platinum. The centre was inset with a smooth pave of blood-red stones, the heart of each one burning with a tiny iridescent hint of purple.

“It’s a Black family ring, actually,” Draco offered, as the minute of silence between them grew ever longer, uncomfortably so. “My mother’s grandmother gave her the set upon her betrothal. She handed them on to me just recently, when I asked what might please you.”

Making a business of it, he shifted his legs. Rearranged Harry atop them, just so. They both peered at the ring and Harry, though he was loath to admit it, was more than a bit enchanted by the beauty of the long-dead jeweler’s artistry. But he’d not the slightest inclination to be wearing it.

“There’s a matching one.” Draco mentioned the next moment, his voice a bit dodgy. “I have it with me, in case you might be feeling agreeable?”

Harry both felt and heard the nervous swallow, just as he could feel the tell-tale increase in Draco’s pulse and see it pounding away at the base of his long pale throat.   

“Uh.” Harry gulped as well, barely daring to imagine what a ring like that might mean in the Wizarding world. Snobby and Kreacher had been brilliant recently, Incendio’ing every single Owl and Howler sent by the press and random strangers and reinforcing the Repelling Wards around Grimmauld and the Manor to maximum capacity. “About that?”

“...Yeah?”

So, he didn’t. Instead, he reached out a chiding finger to gently tap at Draco’s cheek, causing those exceptionally expressive eyebrows to weave together into a full-on frown.

“Er. Just a few weeks ago we began shagging, alright? Not to be contrary. But. Isn’t this little early in the programme?”

“We’re of age, Potter! How can it be ‘too soon’ when we already know what’s what, I ask you? We may as well make it official!”

Draco, whose expression had been flickering on and off between smugly arrogant--because of McGonagall's threat to cut off their shagging life, and he likely doubted Harry would stand for it--and cautiously hopeful--because Draco Malfoy was a secret sodding romantic who teased, pulled pigtails, just as his mother said, and had the gall to compose horribly little-boy-clever poems back in Second Year for those certain toad-green-eyed boys whose ‘pigtails’ he so fancied--was instantly crestfallen. For there was no chance Harry was standing down; the famous green eyes were adamantine.

“...Oh.”  

“I’m sorry, Draco.”

“I see.” His eyes downcast, Draco’s fingers trembled a bit as he shut the little box regretfully. He held Harry perhaps a shade nearer than before. “I...I’m sorry, too.”

“Well,” Harry said, after a moment, not knowing where to look or what to say next.

“Well,” Draco echoed.  

“You know, Harry,” he remarked, as the awkward silence threatened to become a living thing, inserting itself tooth-and-claw between them. And ever so off-the-cuff, as if rejections of his proposals happened daily and it was but a mere trifle. “You know, if I were a different man, a different Slytherin, perhaps one who’d acquiesced to marry a Greengrass girl or someone equally suitable. As my father so dearly wished I’d do, curse him. So many bloody falsehoods and fallacies, Harry; you can’t even _imagine_.”

He stopped and sneered, visibly grinding his teeth, and Harry instinctively laid his hand over the one clutching the box, smoothing the knuckles.

“Or maybe if my wand hadn’t chosen you, except I rather think my heart had already done that, well beforehand, who knows? P’raps then I would have lied and told you--oh, but not _you_ , Harry, never _you_ \--I’d’ve told that person, that mythical, suitable person, that yes, this was it, there was no choice about it. It’s this or nothing, no options.”

“...Yes?”

“But that’s not the case, is it?” Draco blinked quickly, eyes aglitter, but he never looked away and Harry met his gaze unflinching. “That’s _not_ true, and I swore to you never to lie, Harry.”

Harry smiled. “You did do.”

“We can stay at the Hog’s Breath, or where ever you fancy in Hogsmeade. There’s no need yet,” Draco glanced down at the little box and smiled ruefully, “or ever, really, to feel as if you must, as if there’s any constraint. Just know...just know the offer’s open, now, and in the future, and always.” He ducked his shining head, leaning in to press a kiss upon Harry’s brow. “I do love you, Harry Potter. I never needed my wand to tell me that, truly.”

Harry smiled, yet more broadly than he ever had before, as brilliant as the sun. As blindingly bright as Hedwig’s wings had ever been, soaring above the snow-blanketed grounds of Hogwarts.

He caught up Draco’s jaw with his free hand and directed it so that he could return the kiss. Ever so lightly, right upon the edge of Draco’s lips, where the sneer had fallen away and there was a tremble and a quirk--the beginnings of a matching grin. It was the sort Harry always fancied seeing on Malfoy’s face--and had never dreamt would be presented _him_ , of all people. It presaged all the lovely smiles that Harry would see in the future Draco spoke of with such conviction, the ‘always’ he-- _they_ \--wanted and wished for. The one they’d both have, amazingly enough. There was a joy to be had in that, and Mrs Malfoy was spot on about some things, at least.  

“Oh, I don’t know, Malfoy; I’m a Gryffindor, remember? Are you daring me to wear it?” he chuckled. “Are you game?”

“Oh! Oh, yes!” Draco froze, his heavy lids rising swiftly, revealing molten silver, alight with promise. “Ready, Harry, any time you like.”

Even his voice seemed re-energized, the swift brush of his lips a lightning-strike of the very best kind. Harry grinned, enjoying the thrill, and drew back, cocking his chin in a challenge. He snickered, spreading wide his fingers. Waggling them, just as a tease.

“Bring it, then. I dare you.”

“Are you serious? You are serious!” Draco flashed his teeth in a outrageous grin. “Scared, Potter?” The box sprang open, the ring re-materializing upon the palm of his hand, ready for the taking. “Set!”

“You bloody well wish, Malfoy! _Match_!” Harry whooped--and snatched the rubbishing thing up, stuffing it on his finger, closing his fingers tight about about it--all his love compressed into just that one word.

“Hah! I should say I bloody well _do_ , Harry!”

All Harry’s joy, his hope and his future guffawed like a posh loon and wrapped himself bodily about Harry, rocking them both back-and-forth and frantically trying to snog Harry stupid-silly all at once. It was madness, but the finest kind.

And, all unnoticed, neatly tucked in a pocket and carelessly stuffed up a sleeve holster, two especial wands glowed bright, golden and silver-hued, and the words Mr Ollivander--he who _knew_ wands, as wands were his _business_ \--had so carefully inscribed quite a long time ago--perhaps far longer ago than it's wise to relate--were clearly to be seen, revealed even to the untrained eye.

But it was merely the same words Mr Ollivander had shared many a time over, with many a student and many a parent; nothing special, really. Excepting in some certain _particular_ cases, naturally. But yet, there it was, larger than life and twice as bright:     

“The Wand Chooses the Wizard.”  


End file.
